Day: December 15, 2019

Posted on by

How startups in APAC are tackling the last mile in-destination

From L to R: Bobby Healy, Founder & CEO, Manna.aero; Rod Bishop, CEO, Jayride; Panhavuth Heng, Chief Commercial Officer, BookMeBus

For many commuters or travellers, Google Maps is the first stop when it comes to planning travel routes; it automatically crunches the time it would take for various transportation types, as well as the costs if you are booking rides from some of the more popular ride-hailing apps.

Yet, there is a gap in the market; and Google, surprisingly enough, does not have all the answers – especially when it comes to helping travellers with their ‘last-mile’ in-destination. “Google wants to suck all these transportation companies into their map, but so far, they have got only five or six [such as Grab, Lyft and Uber], they haven’t got it all,” said Rod Bishop, CEO of Australia-based startup Jayride.

Furthermore, Google does not provide transportation booking services itself.

Bishop spoke at a panel discussion about moving transportation online at the WIT Innovation Stage this week as part of WiT Singapore 2019. He was joined by Panhavuth Heng, Chief Commercial Officer of Cambodia-based startup BookMeBus, with Bobby Healy, Founder & CEO of Ireland-based startup Manna.aero, moderating the panel.

Bishop’s startup focuses on price comparisons for airport transfers across 81 countries, covering over 1,500 airports, so travellers no longer have to scramble around multiple airport transfer service booths to find out who gives the best deal (or get haggled by other external operators outside the airport, for that matter).

He gave a rather humorous anecdote to emphasise his startup’s USP (unique selling point) that also acted as a great metaphor for the pain points surrounding last transportation mile for travellers. “A lady in L.A. was in front of me and she was downloading every ride-hailing app, and when I asked her what she was doing, she said ‘I’m going to…find out which one’s cheapest, and then that’s the one I’m going to use.’”  It highlighted the niche gap that the travel industry has to step up and tackle.

Also Read: KiotViet gets US$6M Series A funding from Jungle Ventures, Traveloka, eyeing expansion

Healy posited that bigger OTA companies could outspend and out-strategise the smaller startups on this front (imagine if TripAdvisor integrated a similar airport transfer feature within their platform instead of having its users crowdsource answers on its platform).

Heng, whose startup, BookMeBus, provides online digital management systems for bus operators in Cambodia and surrounding markets, is not fazed. His focus, he said, is about building a full-fledged ecosystem for transport companies, including content, online payment and invoicing, and ads. This enables the transport operators to upscale their offerings and provides a full-fledged service to travellers.

For example, a customer can use BookMeBus to arrange for airport transfers to hotels as well as ground or ferry transport to places of interest all on one single transport platform.

These startups, however, still face threats from ride-hailing unicorns like Grab and Uber, which provide not only transport but also food delivery, among other services. For example, some travellers will stick to just one provider because it caters to all their needs. To that point, Healy asked the panellists whether their startups would consider broadening their product base, or if they are satisfied with just focusing on a single vertical.

Bishop said that the key thing is identifying what the traveller wants. If a person books an airport transfer, do they necessarily need food delivery? Probably not. The key point is providing the right value to the customer, which in Bishop’s case, is getting right airport transfer for their needs at a good price point.

It’s a difficult case to fight for sure. At the end of the day, with enough commitment and capital, large corporations like Google could very easily launch a far superior transport booking platform for travellers, eroding the USP of smaller players.

But if there’s one element that is not easy to compete with, it is localisation – the secret sauce of any startup’s winning game.

“We work closely with the ground operators… we speak the local language and culture. Cambodian people are very skeptical… trust is a huge factor,” said Heng.

“It’s about customer service that provides the extra mile so you are no longer anxious about travelling,” said Bishop It’s not just about transportation but fundamentally rethinking what it means to provide a quality travel service.

—

This article was first published on WiT.

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: WiT

The post How startups in APAC are tackling the last mile in-destination appeared first on e27.

Posted on by

Grab launches electric vehicles pilot in Indonesia with the government’s support

Grab_EV ecosystem_Indonesia_electricvehicles_Softbank

Grab has gained the Indonesian government (Coordinating Ministry of Maritime and Investment)’s full support in the launch of Electric Vehicle (EV) Ecosystem Roadmap that aims to accelerate EV adoption in the country and bring a more environmentally sustainable transport network.

Grab launches Four-Wheels and Two-Wheels Electric Vehicles (EV) pilot projects in Jakarta with support from carmakers to help build up Indonesia’s EV ecosystem. The move is also the unicorn’s answers to government’s target of 2 million EVs by 2025, something that SoftBank has committed to support through its US$2 billion investment into Grab back in July.

Grab also announced partnerships with automakers Hyundai, Astra Honda Motor, and Gesits to launch four- and two-wheel electric vehicles pilots in the Greater Jakarta region.

Ridzki Kramadibrata, President of Grab Indonesia said: “The joint effort is in line with our commitment to accelerate digital infrastructure development in Indonesia, will help us to come up with solutions that will achieve higher cost efficiencies and spur more people to adopt EVs not just in Indonesia but also across the rest of the region.”

Also Read: Grab teams up with Singapore Power to roll out 200 electric vehicles

“We are very grateful for the initiative that has been done by Grab as this in line with the current regulation in further developing the EV industry as well as accelerating the use of environmentally-friendly transportation modes in Indonesia,” said Luhut Binsar Pandjaitan, Coordinating Minister of Maritime and Investment Affairs of the Republic of Indonesia.

“This can also support the government’s initiative to reduce the air pollution issue in Indonesia, especially in Jakarta,” he continued.

Grab reportedly has been expanding its EV ecosystem by collaborating with governments and partners like automakers and electricity providers, to drive up EV adoption. By gaining insights on how to better operationalise and expand EV fleets, Grab seeks to co-develop policies with governments with the aim of making EVs more affordable, thus encouraging driver-partners and fleet owners to adopt EVs.

Grab claimed to already own one of the largest fleets of electric vehicles in Southeast Asia, with 200 Hyundai KONA models operated on Singapore roads in a pilot project, launched in January this year.

Grab is also partnering Singapore’s energy utilities provider, SP Group, to use its public EV charging network for Grab’s EVs.

Also Read: Grab raises US$250M more from Hyundai, Kia; plans for electric vehicle adoption

In Indonesia, Grab has inked an agreement with state-owned electricity provider Perusahaan Listrik Negara (PLN) to co-build a network of electric vehicle charging stations.

On two-wheel front, Grab has partnered with Astra Honda Motor (AHM) and Gesits to launch EV bike pilots, all to test the viability of using EV bikes across Grab’s ride-hailing, food and parcels delivery business in greater Jakarta area.
–

Picture Credit: Grab

The post Grab launches electric vehicles pilot in Indonesia with the government’s support appeared first on e27.

Posted on by

How forming an LLC protects your business

 

A limited liability corporation (LLC) is a hybrid legal entity that combines the tax benefits of sole proprietorships and partnerships with the liability protection of corporations.

While an LLC does provide significant protections for business owners, the protection offered is not complete. If you are considering forming an LLC, you should take the following five aspects of liability protection into account:

1. Personal liability for the LLC’s debts

The most powerful protection an LLC offers is that it generally shields owners from liability for the debts of the LLC. In a sole proprietorship, if your business becomes insolvent or ceases to operate, you may be liable for all of the debts of your business.

This means that creditors could seize your personal assets, including your bank accounts, vehicles and home to satisfy the debts of your business. With an LLC, creditors of the LLC can only pursue the assets of the LLC and not the assets of the owners. However, this protection may not apply in cases where you have personally guaranteed debt. 

2. Personal liability for the actions of co-owners and employees

If your business has more than one owner and one of the other owners becomes liable for damages due to their negligence or misconduct in the course of operating the business, they may be held jointly liable with the LLC, but creditors will not be able to pursue your personal assets if you were not involved in the wrongdoing.

This also applies to damages caused by the actions of your employees. 

3. LLC’s liability for personal debts

The LLC structure provides many protections for business owners from the liability of the LLC, but it also protects your business from being dissolved by creditors due to the personal debts of the owners. In most cases, creditors can not seize the assets of an LLC to satisfy the personal debts of owners.

However, in some states creditors may be allowed to obtain a charging order, foreclose on an owner’s interest share or get a court order to have the LLC dissolved so that it’s assets can be sold off and used to pay creditors. It may be wise to consult with an attorney to determine which of these remedies are available to creditors in your state.

4. Personal liability for your actions

An LLC will generally not protect you from liability for your actions. If you cause damages due to your negligence, malpractice or other wrongdoing in the course of operating your business, both you and the LLC can be held liable for those damages.

This means that both the assets of your business and your personal assets can be seized to satisfy any judgments against you. 

5. Piercing the corporate veil

In certain circumstances, courts may choose to ignore the liability protections afforded when you start an llc. This is called “piercing the corporate veil.” Courts generally do not like to pierce the veil but may choose to do so when attempting to force a corporation to comply with a government program, when a business has been found guilty of manipulating bankruptcy laws or committing other types of fraud when businesses have deliberately maintained low levels of capital that are insufficient to pay employees or shareholders and in situations where owners have not sufficiently separated their personal affairs from the affairs of the business.

When the corporate veil is pierced, any owners or shareholders found personally liable for the wrongdoings of the business can be held liable for any judgments against the business. 

Forming an LLC does not provide you with complete protection from liability incurred by your business. However, it does have some significant advantages that are worth considering. It may be a good idea to consult with an expert before determining if this business structure is right for you.

–

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:  Armando Arauz

The post How forming an LLC protects your business appeared first on e27.

Posted on by

The warlord in the park: how ex-Googler Andy Cheng used constant problem-solving to deliver better products and grow his startup

 

First attempts at startup products usually fall short. This can be really frustrating, but early-stage founders don’t often realise that these false starts are real opportunities.

Why? When founders give this product to new users, they are trying to help a new customer fare better than those “normal” people who do things in what founders consider the “old way.”

Most people using a new feature or a product for the first time are used to doing business or experiencing something in what they consider the normal way. They are not like the founder, who has dreamed up a vision of how things should be done. When a founder gives this new product to a potential customer, she is trying to do three things: 1. Sell the product! 2. Integrate this new vision into the customer’s reality. 3. Solve a problem that often a potential customer didn’t even know they had.

This new approach takes time to understand and appreciate. It’s almost like taking someone and plopping them down in a new culture, or in a different era somewhere far into the future.

By giving these potential customers something very new, they will approach it with some scepticism, some doubt, and some reasons why it won’t work.

As a result, it’s inevitable that a first trial will end in incremental data and not much customer acquisition.

But this new confrontation with tech is a chance to seek feedback. This feedback creates a cycle of improvement. This is why founders who struggle with their own problem first usually have a better chance of finding product-market fit.

I will tell you a story about a founder who went through the AppWorks Accelerator and launched his own product successfully to demonstrate this point.

The park

It was a spring day in Taipei around the year 2011 and then-Googler Andy Cheng was looking for a house to buy. Married and with a young son, Andy wanted a property his family could grow into. A real estate agent showed him a house in a desirable neighbourhood. A stretch of the park just behind the house meant this was exactly what he was looking for.

Andy nearly made an offer. Then he found out that the park was slated for school construction. Rushing to close, the broker hid this from Andy. The seed of an idea was planted in Andy’s mind.

“I thought, ‘Man, what else have you not told me,’” says Andy, as he looked back at how he developed foundi (AppWorks #8), a real estate listing platform.

The first thought Andy had had when he set to work was not: How could he solve the problem of a culture of manipulation and secrecy that seemed endemic to real estate brokers?

He only sees that his startup could make an impact in that area in retrospect. Like many founders, Andy’s MVP alone didn’t help the real end-user — at the time, house buyers — but it started a process that eventually got him there. And this is really important for early founders to understand.

Also Read: The perks of using YouTube to take your startup marketing to the next level

A new product alone is never enough to create scale and customer growth. You have to do a whole lot of digging to get there.

How it started

From Andy’s perspective, there were so many houses to choose from, so wouldn’t trust and honesty be the winning factor for an agent closing a contract?

Andy learned that relatively low-paid real estate agents live off of commission, and in doing so, they often worked in ferocious competition against each other, even in the same agencies. In contract bidding — even before negotiations — the potential future sale of a home often goes to the agent that creates the most perfect too good to be true contract. House sellers want a good return, so agents will find ways to make their pitch of the future contract as lucrative as possible.

It doesn’t matter if the price is true, or if it accurately reflects the true conditions of the house. It’s every man for himself.

It gets worse!

Since every agent is motivated by commission, agents who are first to find the listing will also try to hide the listing info from other agents, making it nearly impossible for other agents to pitch a contract.

This unethical weirdness became more than an engineering puzzle for Andy, who was quite proficient with software programming and maps. Previously, he had worked as one of Google’s first hires in Taiwan, managing a team of engineers in the maps division.

Code and problem-solving are in his wheelhouse. “I always go to the computer to code, to figure things out,” he says. But to tackle this problem, he had to go beyond the screen.

He created an early version of foundi. House sellers and buyers would use that version to find information about listings. But they took this info back to agents and used it to try to haggle

better deals. This put burdens on the buyers of houses, though; this was exactly the position Andy was in before and didn’t want.

He booked meetings with influential agencies and set up face-to-face consultations. He discovered that real estate agents were typically not the best performers in school. They are also technology-averse. It explained a lot.

With the right technology, they wouldn’t have had to be dishonest to compete. By sitting down and walking through foundi features with early adopter agents, Andy finally got to a point where he was able to convince more of them to use the product.

Like an arms dealer selling his weapons to different cartels, Andy started to spread his tool to different agencies. Whereas previously agents in the same agencies would be pitted against each other, teams began to perform at a higher level. Other agencies saw agencies doing better, and wanted the same tool.

“I felt like I was a warlord,” Andy jokes.

Has he made the market more transparent? It’s hard to say this early in the game. But according to Andy, this counterintuitive outcome holds promise.

By taking away the old things that made agents competitive — their secrecy and manipulation — he has actually made real estate agents more competitive. Therein lies a fundamental concept of startup building, and the core reason why data drives product development. Early-stage founders might take note of this technique.

Now, Andy’s customer’s number about 12,000 agents of the total 40,000 in Taiwan, who rely on foundi to serve their customers better and in turn maximize their income. Andy takes a long-term approach to this door-to-door sales effort.

If a founder has a good head on his shoulders and is passionate about what he’s doing, he will eventually build something that people need, in a market people didn’t know could exist. No newly launched product can do this immediately. It’s always a process, and it involves founders stepping away from the computer and even leaving the building, to get it right.

Answers and your product exist in people’s heads and hearts, whether they know it or not. As a founder, you are quite simply the enabler that will help them experience that by delivering a

“For [what will be] a hundred-year-old tree, I will say we are now at the stage of ‘small tree,’ but strong and healthily growing up,” says Andy.

Tangible good that unlocks a mental model. Think of it as a game, with a constant state of going on side quests. Without quests, you cannot complete the journey.

–

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:  Armando Arauz

 

The post The warlord in the park: how ex-Googler Andy Cheng used constant problem-solving to deliver better products and grow his startup appeared first on e27.

Posted on by

Why should universities teach blockchain to students?

 

Blockchain – there is very little chance you did not hear about this technology. It can certainly be dubbed one of the most innovative and useful latest technological advancements of the XXI century. According to the data from Statista:

“Worldwide spending on blockchain solutions is expected to grow from 1.5 billion in 2018 to an estimated 11.7 billion by 2022.”

Blockchain brought a wave of decentralization with it, which was not around before – and while some have jumped on the bandwagon of innovations that came with blockchain, there are so many people in the world that still have very limited understanding of what blockchain really is. 

Why learn about blockchain?

Thanks to the numerous unique and extremely useful features of blockchain, including decentralization, this nascent technology are here to stick. Already, hundreds of thousands of modern companies are working on blockchain-fueled solutions that are going to improve our way of living in one way or another. 

With the abundance of real-world use cases, blockchain has surprisingly low adoption at the moment – barely any governments have deployed blockchain-based solutions for the public sector.

One of the key reasons this happens is the low level of knowledge about blockchain among the general public. As a result, some of the world’s leading nations are lagging behind due to the inability to solve some of the lingering issues with the power of blockchain. 

Luckily, many governments started looking in the right direction. The first step towards a wider blockchain adoption in countries comes with changes in the education program. In fact, according to the Coinbase, currently, around 56 per cent of the world’s top 50 universities offer at least one course that focuses on blockchain or cryptocurrencies. This figure went up from 42% in 2018 – this shows slow but steady progress.

Another piece of data that shows the demand for this kind of initiatives is also presented by Coinbase:

“Twice as many students report having taken a crypto or blockchain course than they did in 2018”

Today, universities all over the world are introducing blockchain courses to their students as they realize the importance behind the technology. Some of the countries that have universities with courses on blockchain include Switzerland, the USA, Canada, Denmark, Singapore, Cyprus, Spain and more. 

One of the first universities to introduce blockchain-focused courses to its curriculum is Cornell University in the US. Many Cornell alumni are leading successful blockchain and cryptocurrency projects. 

Demand for blockchain education is rising

Blockchain statistics from Coinbase show that 70 per cent of blockchain and cryptocurrency classes are taken outside of computer science – including economics, humanities, and law.

This signals that the majority of modern students are interested in learning about blockchain irrespective of their key focus of studies. The increased interest in decentralized technology comes from a distrust in the modern financial system. 

Data from a survey of 735 students from the US unveiled that they believe that the current financial system is “inefficient”, “unstable”, and “slow-moving”.

Another big factor that contributed to the growing interest in cryptocurrencies is the rising price of virtual currencies in 2017. Aside from a monetary point of view, students are interested in knowing the value and features of blockchain and cryptocurrencies. They are particularly interested in real-world use cases. 

For those that study law, the blockchain challenges traditional legal terms and categories, which can be extremely relevant in the coming years. For students from economy and business schools, blockchain and cryptocurrencies are a subject of interest from the perspective of the nature of money. Some even see Bitcoin as the next step in the evolution of money. 

In addition, some schools’ classes focus on how decentralization can aid data storage and decision making processes in the future. 

Considering the abundance of blockchain use cases in the current market, students are guaranteed to have a lot of learning material. The below graph shows blockchain technology use cases throughout global organizations in 2019.

Statista, 2019.

Emerging economies show progress

Despite lagging behind developed countries in terms of some parameters, emerging economies show a lot of potentials when it comes to the adoption and development of innovative technologies, such as Blockchain. 

One of the developing countries that have been increasingly active in regards to blockchain and cryptocurrency adoption in Indonesia. Being the most populous Southeast Asia (SEA) nation, Indonesia offers a wide area of opportunity to introduce blockchain technology to the market.

One of these initiatives took place back in April 2018, when the Indonesian government launched the Making Indonesia 4.0 Roadmap in efforts to prepare the country for Industry 4.0. 

This project has provided a solid ground for successful blockchain adoption in Indonesia. In fact, one of the Indonesia-born blockchain projects, Tokoin, decided to step forward to introduce the technology to students through its Campus Meeting Event series. 

The key message and focus of the event series are to educate the young generation about the ins and outs of blockchain technology and increase cryptocurrency adoption rates among students.

As a part of the Campus Meeting, Tokoin is introducing Tokoin BITS (Blockchain Integrated Transaction System). This useful feature helps users split the bill or pay the bill partially by card and cash – a situation that is faced by the majority of the global population on a daily basis.

In the course of its Campus Meeting Events, Tokoin has been visiting a number of universities across Indonesia in November as a way to build a strong foundation for blockchain education in the country. 

On November 6, Tokoin visited Perbanas Institute in Jakarta. Following this, on November 16, the team paid a visit to the University of Indonesia (UI). Tokoin has collaborated with the Student Executive Board of the Faculty of Economics and will take part in the event “EXCITE 2019” with the theme “Get ready to be active, adaptive and successful in the era of 4.0 industrial revolution and digitalization”. 

The Executive Vice President of Sirclo, Rhinaly Tjhin, Head of Business Development at GrabFood, Rizkie Maulana Putra and The General Manager of Tokoin, Ignasius Michael will all take part in presentation for students, highlighting the unique use cases of cryptocurrency and blockchain technology.

In another episode of its Campus Meeting Events, Tokoin team has paid a visit to the Sepuluh Nopember Institute of Technology in Surabaya, East Java. This university is known for its strong focus on scientific, engineering, and vocational education system.

Tokoin plans to continue its journey across Indonesian educational venues in an effort to make a change and bring blockchain technology closer to the students.

Final words

With Tokoin leading blockchain education initiative in Indonesia, the level of blockchain technology adoption in the country is set to rise, prompting a wave of innovative projects. 

As more universities and projects invest in getting the young generation familiarized with blockchain principles, uses, and benefits, we can be sure that the future of the global economy is in safe hands. 

Who knows, maybe soon enough, the majority of nations will accept blockchain technology as something that is worth including in the mandatory education system.

–

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: Mikael Kristenson

The post Why should universities teach blockchain to students? appeared first on e27.