Day: November 23, 2019

By default, anyone who owns a business or manages a team has the title of leader, but in my consulting experience, I find that just having the title doesn’t make most of us a true example of the word.

I also find that leaders are made, not born, meaning that we all can grow into leadership, if we learn from experience. I find also that if you fail as a leader, your team will likely fail with you.

Of course, everyone thinks they know what it takes to make a great leader, and many books have been written about the subject. Yet I haven’t found many that offer practical recommendations and examples.

In this context, I was impressed with the new book The Intelligent Leader, by executive coach John Mattone, whom I respect tremendously from my years of consulting in Silicon Valley.

John distills the work he’s done with clients over the years into what it takes to lead, empower, and inspire others. I recommend these actionable principles of leadership for the rest of us, which we can use to evolve ourselves as business leaders as well as owners, including the following:

1. Consistently strive to think differently and think big
Most of the people on your team have to worry about the current crisis, and getting their job done today.

A leader has to keep the big picture in mind, and keep people focused on the long-term vision and mission. Home in on alternative ideas that are actionable, no matter how revolutionary.

Steve Jobs had many faults, but he was perhaps best known for his marketing slogan “Think different” and his commitment to a vision of new and better products, inspiring consumers to demand products and services they never even knew they needed.

Also Read: RedDoorz appoints two new regional leaderships, to accelerate growth next year

2. Create a culture of vulnerability and be the role model
Allowing yourself to be vulnerable and transparent to others makes it possible for them to trust you. Without vulnerability and humility, real change and growth isn’t possible. You need to be willing to open yourself up to others’ feedback, and acknowledge flaws in order to correct them.

Jack Welch, CEO and chairman of General Electric for many years and well-known for being a strong leader, set up a “reverse mentoring” process by pairing younger, more internet-adept employees with older members of senior management so the former could teach the latter about new technology.

This made his leadership team stronger, and built huge bonds with his team.

3. Replace a mindset of entitlement with a mindset of duty
The duty mindset is a perspective in which you see yourself as a key cog in a much larger wheel. Having this bigger picture empowers you to better identify the areas where you need improvement, and set yourself on the right course to positively impact those around you.

4. Prioritise leveraging your gifts over closing your gaps
First, don’t hesitate to solicit input to get the most accurate possible picture of yourself. Then don’t take your strengths for granted or overreact to gaps.

Develop an action plan to lead from your strengths, and seek outside support or complementary partners to shore up leadership weaknesses.

In the early days of Microsoft, Bill Gates recognised his technical leadership skills but relied on partner Steve Ballmer, trained at Procter & Gamble, to lead the marketing and business development efforts. Both learned from the other, and became even stronger.

Also Read: Employees acting weird? this is the time to check your leadership skills

5. Cultivate the courage to execute with passion and precision
Some never make the shift from perspective to action; it takes you outside your comfort zone. But only then can you identify the opportunities for change, and make the mistakes leading to growth and learning. Fearlessly executing with pride and passion inspires others to follow you.

6. Take the time to stay present, listen, and be vigilant
Leaders often make the mistake of thinking that their time is more valuable than anyone else’s, but this breeds resentment and takes you out of touch with reality. In this age of distraction, you need to slow down and absorb each situation, decision, or moment to provide the most effective leadership.

7. Make course correction both a mindset and an action
As an action, course change leadership is what you do in the moment, when you need to pivot. As a mindset, it’s a way of life.

You need to be aware that the world around you is in a state of constant evolution, and your leadership must stay balanced in the face of inevitable change.

Ironically, despite all these positive action items, intelligent leadership in business isn’t really even about you–it’s about both the culture and the teams you create, who really are the leadership interface your customers see and depend on.

Your challenge is to be the steward and model for the leadership that inspires the success and legacy that we all want for our business.

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A previous version of this article first appeared on nfinitiv.

Image Credit: Perry Grone on Unsplash

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Quilt, a Singapore-based human insights startup powered by AI, announces that it has raised a Series A funding led by Nadathur Group, an investment management firm.

As reported by Tech In Asia, the company said it plans to use the new funds to develop the capacity for over 200 languages, build training models on more than 100 billion images, and improve its video recognition and classification engines.

Quilt was founded in early 2018. Its platform indexes and clusters human conversations and expressions across social, news, blog, and institutional sources, as well as search engines, all to help enterprises understand patterns in human behavior at scale.

“We are using anthropologists, semioticians, and designers to work with engineers, data scientists, and mathematicians. With how we operate, the platform changes the internet into the largest reflection of the human world and allows us to understand people and culture better,” said Quilt co-founder Angad Singh Chowdhry.

Along with the funding, the company also announced that it has welcomed Rishad Tobaccowala, who is a member of the senior management at French advertising and the Chief Growth Officer of public relations firm Publicis Groupe, to join its board of directors.

Also Read: Singapore’s AI-based data startup Near raises US$100M from Greater Pacific Capital

Quilt claims to have over 100 clients to date, including global companies such as Amazon, Colgate, Procter & Gamble, Accenture, and Visa.

With its service, Quilt said it uses internet-based tools to drive communication for non-profit organizations like the World Bank, Girl Effect, and the Children’s Investment Fund Foundation, among others.
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At the moment, there are more than 1500 cryptocurrencies existing today, with a combined market capitalization of over USD$18 billion. As the crypto industry progresses at a high pace, investors are constantly willing to trade in the market that never sleeps. In order to be able to participate in cryptocurrency trading, users turn to the so-called exchanges. 

Cryptocurrency exchanges, or digital currency exchanges, are platforms that enable customers to trade digital currencies for other assets. Cryptocurrencies can be traded for fiat money or different digital currencies. 

Without a doubt, exchanges for these cryptocurrencies have a great influence on the development of projects and their liquidity. Yet, to what extent does the number of featured exchanges matter when it comes to the bright future of the project?

Let’s discuss this.

ICO market: trust issues sunk its popularity?

The cryptocurrency market has been overtaken by the popularity of ICOs in 2017, with the peak craze going on towards the end of December 2017, when Bitcoin hit the ceiling at around USD$20K. In addition, thousands of ICOs have taken place last year, with only a fraction of them surviving and bringing value today. 

Unfortunately, the ICO market was ill-populated with hundreds of scam projects, which raised a significant amount of money and never delivered on their promises, and then suddenly disappeared. This trend has affected the trust of the community for ICOs, decreasing their popularity and success rates. 

According to the statistics from Mashable, “almost 80 per cent of 2017’s ICO were “identified scams.” 

IEO’s as a safer alternative

The year 2019 saw the birth of a new fundraising method, which combined the ICO model with a more solid and stable way of implementing the project. Initial exchange offerings (IEO’s) had a blast this year – during the first half of 2019, IEO projects were able to raise USD$1.6 billion.

The second half of the year has continued riding the trend, with the top exchange launchpads fueling the development of the IEO market. Investor demand for the IEO’s also stays strong, as a number of promising cryptocurrency projects are taking place, heated up by crypto channels in Telegram. 

However, what determines the success of IEO’s in modern crypto space? Some claim it depends on IEO project’s liquidity, others mention the token price and adherence to the roadmap of the project. Some talk about the community size as the gauge of the progress of a project. Today, we will talk about one particular factor – the number of exchanges listing the project. 

Does it affect a project’s long-term success or popularity? Does it determine the true value of the project?

The more the merrier? not quite

The number of exchanges listing the project is closely tied to its liquidity. Without a doubt, liquidity is something that plays a big role in a project. Yet, in the case with IEO’s, thanks to their mechanism of crowdfunding, they get instant liquidity as they are getting listed on an exchange. Thanks to this feature, IEO’s overcome one of the major setbacks that were faced by ICOs – lack of liquidity.

The key important fact when it comes to the IEO liquidity – quality matters over quantity, especially when it comes to multiple exchange listings. 

There is a multitude of cryptocurrency exchanges that are now realizing that the implementation of the launchpad is beneficial for them. Along these are Binance, Bittrex, Bitmax, Huobi, Kucoin, and OKEx along with many others. 

1. Binance, as a matter of fact, is one of the growing crypto exchanges that are now among the top 10 digital currency exchanges in the world. At the moment, it has more than 190 altcoins listed, with the number growing almost every day.

2. Kucoin is yet another prospective exchange that offers a variety of popular coins, including BTC, BCH, XMR, DAG, ETH, XRP, EOS, LTC, ADA, TRX, NEO and the like.

3. Bittrex is an exchange that is based out of the US and offers users the opportunity to trade more than 190 cryptocurrencies as of today. This exchange follows the latest US crypto regulatory practices. 

4. MXC is a Singapore-based exchange that was introduced by a group of professionals with a great digital asset background. At the moment, this exchange offers token trading, perpetual swap trading, OTC trading, and other financial products.

Now, many of these and other exchanges are listing coins on a daily basis – but aside from affecting coins’ liquidity factor, do these exchanges add a lot of value and stability to the projects? Not exactly. 

Just as we mentioned above, quality matters much more than quantity. Speaking differently, the success of a crypto project largely depends on the features of the exchange it is listed on. Some important factors that crypto projects should take into consideration when assessing the possibility of listing are:

Compatibility

Do token’s values reflect those of the exchange? How about the mission – does it align? If a project’s values and vision are in conflict with those of the digital currency platform, a listing might not bring any value to the project, if not depreciate it.

Safety

The importance of this factor cannot be overstated. With recent cyberattacks wiping out thousands of users’ wallets clean, tokens should double-check the exchange for the safety practices in place. Noteworthy, big and popular exchange does not always have the best security systems in place – remember Coincheck hack?

Regulations

Most of the major cryptocurrency exchanges are following the latest regulations when it comes to compliance. Yet, there were cases of popular exchanges overlooking simple regulatory rules. A prospective and stable crypto project would not want to be a part of such an exchange.

These are just some factors that should be on a discussion board of crypto projects that are planning to get listed on yet another exchange. The common belief in the crypto space is that the number of exchanges that the coin is listed on equals the project’s true value. Let’s see real-life examples.

Successful blockchain projects 2019 

GoWithMi

One of the great performing IEO’s, according to the CryptoRank’s list, is GoWithMi. The native token of this project, GMAT, has been able to hit 3.56X ROI USD, with its ATH ROI USD being a whopping 21.08X. 

GoWithMi is committed to building the world’s first complete decentralized location-based services (DLBS) infrastructure. The project has taken off on Gate.io and was able to raise USD$1,350,000 during its IEO.

At the moment, this promising Singaporean project is listed on Gate.io, Big.One and HotBit, with all three exchanges being under USD$500,000 daily trading volume. In addition, these three exchanges are not mainstream and they are not popular globally when compared to other giants like Binance and Coinbase.

Nevertheless, despite being listed on only three exchanges, GoWithMi continues to deliver on its promises and grow its community.

Tokoin

Another successful cryptocurrency project that was introduced this year is Tokoin. Tokoin’s TOKO has performed very well – it reached ATH ROI USD at 9x, with ROI USD standing at 4.18X. Tokoin is striving to secure a better future for micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSMEs) globally. Thanks to its innovative platform, growing businesses are able to use their potential to the full without facing limitations.

Currently, Tokoin is listed on KuCoin and Atomars, according to Coingecko. In spite of the fact that users are now only able to buy this coin on these two exchanges, token’s performance stands among the top 10 for 2019.

Pledgecamp

Yet another example of a successful coin that has not been listed on multiple popular and big exchanges, and still was able to bring 2.93X ROI USD and 3.97X ATH ROI USD is Pledgecamp (PLG).

Also Read: How comprehensive compliance frameworks can enhance trust in blockchain

Pledgecamp aims to disrupt the crowdfunding industry with blockchain-powered escrow contracts. With an impressive list of advisors on its side, this token has been listed on 6 exchanges so far. These are Bithumb Global, MXC, Bitforex, Piexgo, OKEx, Binance DEX. 

Notably, even though this token is listed on Bitforex, which surpasses all other mentioned exchanges (and those of GMAT) in daily trading volume, Pledgecamp’s token’s price is trading cheaper than GoWithMi’s token.

Final word

We’ve discussed that the number of exchanges that list coins does not affect or determine its true value. Yet, what does then?

As mentioned in this article, some key factors like liquidity, community size, adherence to the roadmap are among those that will pave the way for a project.

Nonetheless, there is one more factor that has to do with the exchanges – it is the exchange platform that launched that IEO. Projects that took off of KuCoin, Huobi, OKEx, Gate.io, and Binance generally brought significant profits to inventors.  Following the same logic, investors tend to choose platforms they trust – they see it as a measure of a certain project’s future success. 

To conclude, it is worth to mention that the popularity of the exchange does not always reflect its safety or level of trust that investors have. Choosing the IEO project to invest in takes a lot of thought, and sometimes hyped-up projects fail without even reaching their goals.

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Image Credit: Eftakher Alam

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Silicon Valley startup incubator Y Combinator closing China unit- Reuters

Y Combinator, a Silicon Valley incubator of start-ups, said in a Reuters report it would close YC China, a Chinese version of its US program.

The move comes as tensions rise between the United States and China over trade and intellectual property in the technology sector. Y Combinator said the decision was a change in strategy unrelated to problems between the two countries.

YC China was created in 2018 under the leadership of Qi Lu, a computer scientist who was an executive in Microsoft Corp and Chinese search engine Baidu Inc.

Y Combinator said in a blog post that the incubator had changed its strategy to supporting local and international startups from its Silicon Valley headquarters.

“As a result, we decided that now is not the right time to run a new, country-specific version of Y Combinator,” it said.

Incubators typically run programs for start-up founders to develop ideas and turn them into businesses. Notable Y Combinator program graduates include Airbnb, DoorDash and Dropbox.

Qi will now fund companies under his own program called MiraclePlus, according to the blog. He was not immediately available to comment. Y Combinator said it will continue to support and fund Chinese companies interested in applying to its US program.

Nexus Frontier raising fund to expand to Asia- Press Release

London-based AI solutions firm Nexus FrontierTech has closed a US$3.8M seed round to propel its R&D and global expansion. The funding round was led by a family office based in Geneva, Switzerland, followed by a number of private investors, which include Nick Fry, former CEO of Mercedes AMG Petronas F1, Jennifer Lewis, former Managing Director of GIC, Singapore Sovereign Wealth Fund, and Tom Yoritaka, former Managing Director of Cisco Global Ventures.

A number of these investors are also on the firm’s Advisory Board and heavily involved in the company’s expansion and
growth strategies. Founded in 2015 Nexus specialises in modernising data-intensive processes within the regulatory and compliance realm (RegTech). It builds configurable, scalable solutions to help businesses streamline operations and tackle the issues of inefficiency and data waste.

Also read: This 4-month-old Y Combinator startup wants to be the Stripe for the Philippines

With investment secured, Nexus is more ready than ever to grow their footprint in the UK and US markets and now tap into the immense business opportunities in Asia. They currently have their eyes set on Singapore as a business hub alongside its technology hub in Vietnam, where the company was established in its founding days.

BigGo search engine raises US$5M Series A for international expansion- Press release 

BigGo, the product search engine, and price comparison platform have completed the first close of its Series A round at US$5M. The first closing is led by Silicon Valley-headquartered venture capital firm SOSV, Uni-President Group, and Kyber Capital.

For Uni-President Group, the giant Taiwanese food conglomerate company, BigGo is its second internet investment after the investment in Sea Group, Shopee’s parent company, in 2017.

BigGo graduated from MOX Batch 3, an SOSV accelerator for cross-border mobile internet and the reinvestment will help BigGo expand internationally in markets such as Thailand, Japan, and the European Union. “In 2020, we expect to see a 300% increase in revenue from this year. We also expect a substantial increase in users from 11 million to 25 million users,” says Kevin Yen, CEO of BigGo.

BigGo currently sells more than 4,500 Shopee orders per day, with a record high of more than 10,000 orders in a single day. Many e-commerce companies experience substantial increases in conversions and revenue growth of their products on the BigGo platform.

BigGo business includes price comparison, cashback, offline price comparison, price history tracking, and extension services. The platform is available in English, Chinese, Japanese, and Thai.

Indonesia’s Tokopedia in talks to raise up to US$1.5 Billion- Bloomberg

Indonesia’s online marketplace Tokopedia, backed by the SoftBank Vision Fund and Alibaba Group Holding Ltd., is in talks to raise as much as US$1.5 billion for a final private funding round before an IPP, according to an article by Bloomberg.

U.S. internet companies, as well as existing investors, are considering contributing to the round, which could bring in US$1 billion to US$1.5 billion in the first quarter of 2020, according to the people, who asked not to be identified because the discussions are private. No final decisions have been made and the value of the round could change, they said.

CEO William Tanuwijaya is hoping to attract new investors and raise the 10-year-old, Jakarta-based company’s profile overseas when he lists the firm’s shares locally and in another as-yet undecided market, he said in an interview last month. He declined to specify a timetable for the IPO because of uncertainty about how the trade war between the U.S. and China will affect markets.

WeWork to lay off 2,400 employees globally- DealStreetAsia

Layoffs at WeWork have begun as a part of the struggling office-sharing company’s plan to cut costs after staggering losses. WeWork said in a DealStreetAsia news that the recent reductions will affect 2,400 employees globally. Staff reductions began weeks ago in regions around the world and continued this week in the US. At the company’s Manhattan headquarters, there was an enhanced security presence on Thursday, according to people with knowledge of the matter.

They will receive severance and continued benefits and other forms of assistance, according to an emailed statement. The job cuts represent almost 20% of the company’s global workforce, which totaled 12,500 as of June 30.

WeWork, co-founded by former CEO and chairman Adam Neumann, is seeking to stabilize its business and show a path to profitability. The New York-based company scrapped an initial public offering in September, and its valuation has plummeted from $47 billion as recently as January to about $8 billion. The company reported a net loss of US$1.25 billion in the third quarter, eclipsing its sales and more than doubling its loss from the same period last year.

Image credit: Chastagner Thierry on Unsplash

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There are many ways that the implementation of AI technology can help retail businesses grow.

For consumer goods particularly, the use of AI starts in the supply chain.

According to Noodle AI, between 2016 and 2018, retail use of AI grew 600 per cent. The company also estimated that 95 per cent of supply vendors in the consumer goods space will be leveraging AI learning.

To get a better understanding on how AI can help consumer goods, check out the following infographic by Noodle AI:

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Image Credit: Heidi Sandstrom. on Unsplash

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