Month: January 2020

When you’re planning to expand your startup abroad, the “where” will determine the “how”. Numerous factors will help you make the right decision.

Some will be related to your product. Others will be about the differences between your home and the target markets. 

For instance, if you sell physical products, you’ll need to have shipping costs in mind. But, regardless of whether that’s the case, it will be crucial for you to understand whether there’s an untapped need in your target market that you could fulfill.

And localisation is always key for a successful expansion, so you’ll always need a deep understanding of regulatory, linguistic and cultural differences.

The Caribbean might not be the first region to come to your mind, but that doesn’t mean that it has nothing to offer. In this post, we’ll take a look at five reasons why you should consider doing business in the Caribbean.

Plenty of room for innovation

In this region, governments, NGOs and private enterprises are joining forces to, for instance, guarantee better telecommunications. 

Technological progress is arriving at the Caribbean with a delay, which gives us an opportunity to accelerate this process while growing our business. For example, it’s worth mentioning that local players are mostly lagging behind in disciplines like digital marketing and web development.

Also Read: Why startups need to localise to expand overseas successfully

In the Caribbean, you’ll have an impressive competitive advantage just by guaranteeing the quality you normally deliver to clients in your home country. 

Social entrepreneurship

Understanding your target region’s entrepreneurial ecosystem is key to make the strategic partnerships that drive good business.

In a 2016 paper about social entrepreneurship in Haiti, Oumar Diallo and Marie Evadie Daniel explain that “the main objective of social entrepreneurship is to solve social, economic and environmental problems for sustainable development goals.”

Effective social entrepreneurship is about understanding the business and popular cultures in the region, being aware of social and financial shortcomings, and creating growth that won’t only drive sustainable growth for your stakeholders, but also to local communities.

If you’re up for the challenge, the Caribbean not only has a solid tradition of social entrepreneurship but also solid institutional support.

Tax benefits

Expanding your company to the Caribbean might have amazing tax benefits. Some companies are even choosing to incorporate in the Cayman Islands.

The Cayman Islands is the world’s fifth finance and banking centre, and it offers companies an incredibly favourable tax climate, similar to Singapore in Southeast Asia.

Aside from lower taxes, Caribbean countries can offer you stability, fast incorporation processes and cost-effective legal counselling. 

But, incorporating offshore, while cost-effective, might dissuade some investors, who might want the transparency that they know that their local institutions guarantee. This can be fixed by having your funding agreements designed for transparency by an experienced law firm. 

The Blue Economy

“The blue economy” is defined as “[t]he economic activities that take place in the ocean, receive outputs from the ocean, and provide inputs to the ocean”.

For decades, experts have stated that the new frontier for the Caribbean’s economic growth is the ocean. And NGOs are working to help preserve the Caribbean sea, as a way of preserving the countries’ capital. More specifically, their ocean’s natural capital assets. 

During the 2015 G20 Development Working Group, several Caribbean countries expressed their desire to make policy-related moves towards a Blue Economy. Since then, organisations such as the World Bank have collaborated with governments, research institutions and private entities to lay the groundwork for a solid, sustainable blue economy.

Since 2014, five National Ocean Policies have been created in the region, along with a series of institutions that make the scientific and governance-related leap to a blue economy possible.

For ocean-focused startups, the Caribbean is the place to be.

An educated, multilingual workforce

While English isn’t the official language of all Caribbean countries, you can make yourself understood while speaking English, practically anywhere you go.

With a complex, culturally diverse past, and tourism as one of their highest-grossing industries, Caribbean countries are mostly multilingual. And, with geographical proximity to Mexico and the US, comes a set of shared cultural codes. 

You’ll need to localise your message to your new audience and translate employee handbooks and other material, in order to minimise misunderstandings. But, the cultural gap you’ll have to close isn’t as wide as it would be in other countries.

Also Read: 3 ways to know if your startup is ready to go international

On the other hand, it’s worth noting that higher education is either very affordable or tuition-free in most Caribbean countries. So, by establishing a branch of your company here, you’re getting access to a culturally-aware and highly-educated workforce.

Strategically located

The region’s location is linked to one of the region’s greatest downsides: Its vulnerability to natural disasters. But it can serve as a bridge between the US and one of the most promising markets in the world: South America.

If you’re in the US, you’re nearer than you think to a whole new market with enormous innovation potential. You can go global with the help of a highly-educated and multilingual workforce, in a culture similar to your own, and your product is unlikely to get lost in a sea of competition. 

Of course, innovative startups need supportive and resourceful ecosystems to thrive. While the World Bank Group, as well as several NGOs, are starting and incentivising incubators in the region, the Caribbean ecosystem is still in its very early stages. International investors who don’t shy away from ventures in foreign economies might be your best possible partners. 

As Southeast Asian startups look to expand and grow beyond the region, the Caribbean could be a far-out but probable destination.

Instead of competing with giants in India and China which are the obvious gateways for rapid expansion, startups can use the learnings from overcoming regional diversity and slow regulatory growth here and excel in the multicultural islands of the Carribean.

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In 2018, the Indonesian economy was said to record a growth rate of 5.2 per cent, making it the highest in five years, all in spite of a slump in the rupiah and a trade imbalance. According to Oxford Business Group’s The Report: Indonesia 2019, the country’s emphasis on industrialisation and infrastructure development helped lay the foundations for continued economic growth.

According to the former Minister of Communications and Informatics Rudiantara, Indonesia still has a huge untapped market by any new business processes and that the country can take account in the fact that it has around 80 million Millennials with 65 per cent of them having access to the internet just in 2018.

“It’s more than any market in Southeast Asia and the government is ready to maintain the purchasing power of its people,” Rudiantara said during his keynote speech in Nexticorn International Summit 2019 in November last year.

So with the positive outlook on financial and overall economic power of the country and its people, online P2P lending platforms are one of the multiple types of fintech that will thrive, especially when it addresses the immediate need for financial inclusion by providing access to an underserved market, such as SMEs.

KoinWorks, an Indonesia-based P2P lending fintech startup, claims to be the P2P lending company that owned the majority of the retail lending market in the country. In 2016, the company received its operational permit from the Financial Services Authority (Otoritas Jasa Keuangan, OJK).

Also Read: Fintech startup KoinWorks acquihires Yogyakarta-based software engineering firm, adding more talents to its hundreds headcounts

In 2018, it announced a total of US$15.7 million funding led by Mandiri Capital Indonesia (MCI), with Gunung Sewu and Convergence Venture taking part.

At that time, as reported by e27, the company used the funding to focus on developing a “safe, innovative, and relevant finance platform and financial products for digital SMEs in Indonesia”, something that they have been working on for the past two years.

“Seeing that almost every SMEs have adopted the digital market, this is a market potential that KoinWorks has been focusing on. We aim to have financial inclusion in the country,” said Benedicto Haryono, Co-Founder and CEO of KoinWorks.

Combining the rapid growth of smartphone usage in Indonesia and its affordable and risk-transparent investment offer (as little as US$6.80), the company believes that it can change the public’s behaviour towards investment. KoinWorks aims to bring its existing products one step further by introducing what it called a “Super Financial App” in the near future.

Below is the edited excerpt of e27‘s conversation with Haryono:

What was the idea and consideration behind turning into Super Financial App?

With the rapid growth of technology, we’re willing to continue innovating and evolve into more than just a P2P platform, to serve the market even better and compete with other players.

The initial idea of the new evolution was to design a multifunction app that serves purposes of lending, borrowing and investment alternatives. We’re adding and developing more products gradually and present them in 2020.

How does this differ you from your competitors?

We no longer differentiate the access for borrowers and lenders; they can access diverse financial needs in one platform.

Lenders can start investing from IDR100,000 (US$7.32). The objective is to engage more millennials, who are our target market and to make sure we can provide easy access for users.

Furthermore, we also provide multiple investment alternatives with various grades to cater to lenders’ risk preferences.

What about on the lending side?

On the lending side, we focus to support digital SME both running in e-commerce or social commerce. With the latest feature, we can group the loan according to each lenders’ social interest for funding purposes, such as Woman Led, Made in Indonesia, and more.

Aside from that, we provide student loans for formal and non-formal education purposes.

We’re still the financial platform with the largest numbers of retail lenders and borrowers with almost 270,000 lenders and over 200,000 borrowers.

Due to the nature of our users and what they want, we provide the app that combines the functionalities and added products to answer the needs of our users to help them find more solutions.

How does the “Super Financial App” work?

In the current app, we don’t differentiate borrowers and lenders like we used to. They all merged into users and they can access various financial solutions in just one platform.

We have several running products, which is more than what we offered on a previous app. There are loan marketplace KoinP2P, an automation lending activity with social touch KoinRobo, and business loans up to IDR2 billion (US$146,000) KoinBisnis.

Also Read: P2P lending fintech startup KoinWorks just capped a total of US$15.7M funding

We plan to offer various range of financial products and we will present more products which make us going ‘super’ with various options.

With our current portfolio management, the new app enables users to monitor their assets and loan in the same app. We also ensure transparency with clear and detailed reporting for all activity in the apps.

What would be next for KoinWorks in terms of innovation?

Currently, we are combining retail and financial institutions on our platform. We’re evolving from P2P lending to a marketplace lending platform.

We want to present more for the users so we are working on more advanced technology, preparing more products, and designing the most in terms of appearance. We want to make sure that all of the users are satisfied and have a convenient experience.

We also will present a unified credit limit where the users are provided with a certain amount of credit limit, so the borrowers don’t have to re-apply their loans like they used to.

With more investment alternatives, we would like to be the platform that helps our users maximise their finances even better.

Any funding development or partnership that KoinWorks can disclose to us?

Aside from our past fundings that include Series A led by Mandiri Capital Indonesia, Gunung Sewu, and Convergence Ventures, Series A+ led by Quona Capital, Series B led by EV Growth & Quona Capital, and Series B2 led by Saison Capital, we have closed and in deeper talks with more local and international FI’s for collaborations.

We are also going deeper into our older partnerships and opening new industry partnerships.

Can you share with us what is your prediction of the future of the fintech industry in Indonesia and Southeast Asia?

The numbers of digital businesses are still growing rapidly. Over the past four years, the growth of e-commerce in Indonesia has increased by 500 per cent.

General Director of Informatics Applications at the Ministry of Communication and Information, Septriana Tangkary also stated that Indonesia is the 10th largest country of ‘e-commerce’ growth with a 78 per cent growth and is ranked first.

With the huge amount of Indonesian population (which is 268.2 million as per 2019), 49 per cent of the total numbers are still living in rural areas with the issue of financial access and lack of financial literacy.

Also Read: P2P lending platform KoinWorks raises US$16.5M in Series B funding round

That being said, fintech will grow to provide and could potentially be a part of the national economic infrastructure to tap those who have no access to financial services.

According to data, there is still 74 per cent of Indonesian SMEs that have yet to be served to financial access so the market is still wide open for the Indonesian fintech, especially fintech lending, to target potential SMEs. This, I believe, will affect the sustainability of the national economy where SMEs provide more than 90 per cent of the total national workforce.

With this many players running a similar fintech business, Indonesia will probably own a firm regulation for fintech. Various payment, funding, saving and investing options, basically multiple financial services will appear in more advanced technology.

As more Indonesians grow into the middle-income bracket and the population becomes more educated, they will be more financially savvy and would be willing to have a smarter way of managing their finances.

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Image Credit: KoinWorks

The post KoinWorks CEO: The future of Indonesian fintech lies in automated, all-in financial management app appeared first on e27.

This world is getting digital-faster than we could imagine. Technology is taking new shapes every day, molding according to the people’s needs, bringing us new ideas in the form of innovation. 

One such advancement seen in recent years is the digital workforce, estimated to become pretty popular among marketers in the coming time. Now, before we get started with any further discussion, let’s know some basics about a digital workforce. 

What is a digital workforce? 

The term might sound a bit like science fiction. Google about it, and you will find a myriad of people stressing the importance of a digital workforce, but, ironically, no one knows what it means exactly.

In a broader term, it refers to a team of AI and software that work along with the human employees to perform a task in a way that it requires an input of less labour and yields faster results.

Is there a difference between a bot and a digital worker?  

Though the terms might sound a bit similar, they are different in real life. Software robots or bots are task-oriented and function as directed or programmed. A digital worker, on the other hand, supplements human activity.

It draws a pattern out of the steps taken in performing a task, applies machine learning, improves from experience, and delivers better results without being programmed extensively for it.

How to grow your business 

Digital working is an amalgamation of AI, analytics, and machine learning and comes with virtual employees that, in some context, work better than their human counterparts.

They make the business processes much faster, perform automation and analytics, and accomplish IT operations smoother with very little to no human supervision. 

Any startup that introduces the digital workforce to its marketing strategies effectively leverages its employees’ work efficiency.

How to manage

As you might decipher the importance of the digital workforce in the development of a company, you might understand why it is so important to shape and manage our strategies in a way that can multiply the productivity of digital workers.

Here is what you need to do to never let your digital strategies go out of your hands:

Build a vision, not just a workplace 

You cannot suddenly transform your traditional workforce into a digital one if your business culture doesn’t support it. Having a digital workforce is, thus, not enough. You need to shape the vision and work ethic of your employees effectively. You need to bring employees of all levels on board and start working according to a digital platform beforehand.

Know AI’s limitations and bridge the gaps 

Folks often perceive AI to be more mature than it actually is. One needs to overcome this misconception for a successful business operation. Understanding the areas where AI lacks and deploying a human brain there to handle such situations can serve the purpose. 

Hire people who can employ their experience and expertise for business processes, and let AI assist them in repetitive and routine tasks via automation.

Pursue technology, don’t just embrace it 

Don’t just use technology to assist your workers, utilize it to transform the way you operate your workplace. Infusing tech developments in various areas like communication, banking, financial reporting, customer relationship management, etc. accelerates many manual operations and yields more cost-effective results for a company.

Develop a change management plan 

Recognise that change is a dominant part of your strategy. AI and automation can transform entire business operations. Thus, never overlook the downsides of your digital workforce as it can later cause disruptions in your startup. The negative consequences of digitalization can pile up and decrease your employee productivity up to a large extent.

Avoid AI biases issues 

AI Bias can creep into business practices in various ways and can lead to unintended results while managing a digital workforce. These biases stem from the person coding them. This flawed data can cause the AI to behave in a biased way when performing a task.

These implicit biases may be racial, behavioural, etcetera. One must keep a strict check on their conscious and unconscious bias while training an AI to avoid any such mishap. 

Say yes to BYOD 

The productivity of an employee escalates faster when they get to work on the devices that they used to at home. It has two advantages- one, the employees feel more familiar and work faster; two, you get to cut the cost of buying those devices for your workplace! You can also monitor their work remotely via employee monitoring tools like EmpMonitor, Task Doctor, Monitask, etcetera.

Establish a strong protocol for governance 

Governance is very crucial at any digital workplace as it involves AI and software with very little intelligence of its own. Companies must centralise their workflow management and surveillance. There should be a single place for the visibility of entire locations and systems. This way, you can identify disruptions fairly quickly and deploy fixes for the issue fairly quickly.

Recognise the importance of communication 

It is one of the most crucial, yet most ignored skills by capitalists. Digitalisation doesn’t imply to eradicating the need to communicate. 

The digital market comes with a lot of challenges, and the employees need to maintain sound communication to overcome all that. Data can never survive in the absence of knowledge. Focus on establishing a stable communication to bring out more innovation and productivity over time. 

Learn at the moment 

Hiring people for their skills is clever unless you find them unable to adapt to upcoming trends and new technologies. The digital is continually evolving, and one must know how to learn faster to keep up with its pace. As an employer, not only should you look for such individuals, but also develop this ability yourself. 

Let loose 

Employees today are more concerned about their flexible shifts than they are for their job titles- it’s a fact. The usual methods of management don’t work when going digital. Many tools have made communication and engagement more easygoing. 

Utilise them to let your employees participate in decision-making processes, focus more on the number of tasks each of them performed instead of counting the working hours, monitor their growth, and so on.

Know what works and what doesn’t 

As already stated above, traditional strategies don’t walk the digital path. It doesn’t matter if you graduated from Oxford University or a local one, you may never succeed in the online market if you don’t focus on micro-management. Introducing new and upcoming technologies is not enough in an online workforce. You first need to understand what leads to conversions and what drives sales.

Wrapping it up 

AI and software may be matured enough for your everyday technology, but they don’t possess the capability to substitute human intellect and intelligence. Digital workers carry the potential to effectively reduce your mental and physical labour up to a large extent. Yet, they come with some limitations that you need to deal with for the best results at your workplace. 

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Editor’s note: e27 aims to foster thought leadership by publishing contributions from the community. Become a thought leader in the community and share your opinions or ideas and earn a byline by submitting a post.

Join our e27 Telegram group, or like the e27 Facebook page.

Image Credit: Hannah Wei on Unsplash

The post 11 tips for managing the digital workforce of your startup appeared first on e27.

 

Malaysia-based e-commerce and logistics service provider Epost has closed US$700,000 in seed funding according to a press statement. Vynn Capital, an early-stage venture capital from Kuala Lumpur, is leading the round.

The newly raised capital will be used by the company to expand business operations in Southeast Asia, acquire talents, and enhance marketing efforts.

Founded in Eastern Malaysia back in 2018, Epost has developed an online platform that serves the logistics services where businesses can connect with domestic and international customers. Its current customers include Airbnb operators, bubble tea shop businesses, pet shop businesses, supermarkets, gyms and fitness centres, traditional mom-and-pop storefronts, etcetera.

Epost also stated that it has also been rapidly growing with operations in seven Southeast Asian countries, including Malaysia, China, Singapore, Vietnam, the Philippines and Brunei. It serves five online marketplaces with 13 e-fulfilment warehouses located at key locations throughout.

“In Southeast Asia, the e-commerce logistics industry has plenty of room for growth, especially in services that enable connectivity across national borders. With Epost, we hope to transform the industry and create more value to all players throughout the e-commerce value chain with Epost’s solutions and technology,” said Tobin Ng, co-founder of Epost.

Also Read: Logistics is finally evolving and ecommerce is the culprit, a fireside chat at Echelon Asia Summit 2017

Ng also told e27 that the Indonesian logistics market will be getting more support from the government. Unlike Vietnam, where most transactions happen to be cross border, the Indonesian government is boosting the local market by limiting the number of imported goods that can come in the region.

“The opportunities in cross-border e-commerce are tremendous. In addition to creating greater activity between markets, it also enables smaller merchants and individual consumers to tap into new revenue streams and better service. This fits into our view that eventually there will be convergence—between markets, industries, and sectors—leading up to a better ecosystem for each economy in the region,” added Victor Chua, Managing Partner at Vynn Capital.

“With our investment in Epost, it represents one of the first venture capital investments in the Borneo region and we believe that there will be more quality startups and founders coming out of the Sabah, Sarawak and Kalimantan region as a new potential business market,” he said.

As an island with territories belonging to three countries, Borneo has plenty of potentials.

The startup ecosystem in Brunei is blossoming with players such as Memori and Agrome raising funding rounds. Singapore-based multi-family office and digital consulting group Golden Equator has announced its expansion into Brunei with the launch of Golden Equator Wealth (GEW), Golden Equator Consulting (GECo), and SPECTRUM in the country.

Also Read: Indonesian logistics tech startup Waresix adds US$11M more to its war chest

In Indonesia’s side of the island, the country is currently preparing to set up a new capital city in the province of East Kalimantan. Regional tech giants such as Grab and its investor SoftBank have expressed interest to invest in projects in the new capital.

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Image Credit: chuttersnap

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Plenty has been written on venture capital (VC), private equity (PE) and mergers & acquisitions (M&A) as subsets of the financial industry. Despite the extensive coverage the concept of deal flow (sometimes written as dealflow or even deal-flow) remains vaguely formalised – partly due to lack of coverage, and partly due to the fluidity of the concept itself. Then, what exactly is a “deal flow”? Why is it important to investors; GPs, family offices, and business angels alike?

Key definitions
Simply defined, a deal flow is the total amount of investment opportunities a company has, as per the consensus in definition from Wikipedia, Investopedia, and NASDAQ. Some pages don’t even define the term, even though they recognise its usage. Google Search’s own smart definition follows the same line as can be seen from the pic below.

But that is still not clear enough. What is a deal? Don’t all businesses involve dealing of some kind? And what is this flow? Does “flowing” imply that the deals will consistently go from one place (or phase) to the next?

Deal making
Depending on the industry, a “deal” can mean different things. For early stage venture capitalists, a deal can signify a potential startup company that has, at the very least, expressed interests in being funded by investment firms. For private equity firms, it may refer to a company with potential to be acquired of taken over. And finally, for M&A teams, this may just mean potential companies to acquire or merge with.

Also Read: RealVantage introduces co-investment platform, to allow cross-border real estate deals

You can see part of the definition dilemma here. Since investing in a company is by itself already a fluid activity that morphs throughout the evaluation and negotiation process, and that adapts to the type of activities the firms cover, there is no one single way to tell when the interests (whether mutual or not) in a company start and end.

Even though there is somewhat of a consensus on utilising the term deal flow there is much less agreement on whether the deal flow consists of deals, opportunities, cases or investment opportunities, which all are terms referring to the target company that has a potential to be invested in by the investor.

Getting to the flow
The definition dilemma is further complicated by the term “flow”. Unlike other businesses where the flow of opportunities (leads, sales leads, opportunities, etc) is scarcer, a typical investor faces a flow, and quite often an overflow, of investment opportunities causing a paradox: on the one hand each investor want to see as many deals as possible (for a classic FOMO or to build sector insight) and on the other hand most deals are clear “no-go”s causing extra clutter, headache and work creating very little value.

The problem is not only the amount of investment opportunities but also the natural complexity of the deal-making process. Depending on the investment opportunity at hand the companies can go through multiple different phases in the investment process and the negotiations can pause at any time, and very often for indefinite time. So we are optimistically aiming to steady deal flow, but in reality it’s more a long and winding road with occasional pit stops and u-turns.

Companies who are in the business of selling have a big variety of CRM-systems to choose from, but investing is not selling. And what can be a great system to support selling is most likely less so for running investments. That’s probably one of the main reasons many investors still rely on spreadsheets to keep track of their deal opportunities.

Also Read: Indonesian legal tech startup Legalku raises seed funding from UMG Idealab

Managing the deal flow
The idea of deal flow management is to ensure that investors get all the possible investment opportunities on their radar and get the best of them into their portfolio companies. Deal flow management is about finding potential companies, killing the not interesting investment opportunities as soon as possible and converting the interesting opportunities further into the deal flow and ultimately into investments quicker than the competing bidders.

Importance of deal flow management
There is one simple fact to say about deal flow management: deal flow is your lifeblood and it has to be managed properly. Generally speaking, the more investment opportunities you are exposed to and the more structured data you have on them, the better-informed decisions you can make. However, since nobody likes data entry unless there’s an immediate benefit, this often gets neglected causing a lot of extra hassle further down the road.

Bartosz Jakubowski – a VC in Paris, in one very well-written piece, agrees that although the concept of “deal flow” is sometimes too flexible to be useful, the more deals one VC can source and the higher quality these deals are, the higher returns the firm can drive for their LPs. Jakubowski also takes an interesting view on deal flow, thinking it as a funnel of leads, which is visualised in the pic below.

This sentiment is further confirmed by Dave McClure from 500 Startups, in “99 VC Problems” and Hunter Walk, in “You Lose 100% of the Deals You Don’t See”. Simply put, the more exposure, the better and quicker capital utilisation, less costs and more returns.

Also Read: Fashion tech startup Zilingo acquires software company nCinga Innovations for US$15.5M in cash, stock deal

The concept of “proprietary deal flow” is given fair treatment by Gil Dibner and Mark Suster, both important figures in the VC scene. The common perception is that some high-quality deals are made in exclusivity, and the more access to these deals the investors have, the better investments they will have in their portfolio. This, in turn, will generate higher returns to LPs, build firms’ reputation, and expand the proprietary deal flow, going full circle and creating a positive feedback loop.

Conclusion
In brief, deal flow can be summed up as the funnel of investment opportunities. The larger the funnel, the more can come out at the end – in this case, more profitable investments to make. The real outcome is related to the efficiency and quality of the investor’s deal flow management process, which is what we will deal with in our next posts. Tune in!

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The article was syndicated from nfinitiv and first published on Zapflow.

Image Credit: Frank Busch on Unsplash

The post Fundamentals of deal flow appeared first on e27.

Gredu, an Indonesia-based school management solutions provider, announced that it has raised an undisclosed Pre-Series A funding from Vertex Ventures.

The funding will be used to develop the Gredu application further so that its features are “fully completed and functional” in accordance with the existing education system in Indonesia.

Formed in 2016, Gredu focusses on facilitating teachers’ administrative work such as filling and processing student attendance lists, compiling the daily reports, compiling syllabus details, and managing their teaching schedules.

In its official statement, the company said it supports the mission revealed by Nadiem Makarim, the Minister of Education and Culture in Indonesia, during his speech on National Teacher’s Day 2019.

Makarim stated that even though teachers wanted to help students to catch up with their study, they would still have to spend most of their time doing heavy administrative tasks.

“The commitment in presenting a solution to digitise the school environment can create a more efficient, effective, transparent and measurable learning and teaching process,” said Rizky Anies, CEO of Gredu.

Also Read: Indonesian edtech startup HarukaEDU secures Series C funding led by American global trading firm SIG, expanding into B2B services

Gredu builds a centralised management system supported by separate apps for teachers, parents, and students. It also provides technical assistance before, during, and after the onboarding process.

The system can be adapted to the curriculum that is being used by the schools to help reduce the amount of paper usage significantly.

With its app, Gredu also invites parents to keep up with their children’s progress in real-time. Through recommendations given by teachers, parents are expected to be able to recognise and explore their children’s potential as well as to assist them in areas that they are lacking.

To date, Gredu said it has worked with more than 200 public and private schools in Indonesia.

Venture capital fund ​Vertex Ventures is the venture capital unit of Singapore’s Temasek that holds more than US$700 million in assets under management.

Also Read: Edtech requires certain distinct help that’s different from other verticals: StormBreaker’s Pat Thitipattakul

Joo Hock Chua, Managing Partner at Vertex for Southeast Asia and India, said that the fund is very optimistic about the edutech space in Indonesia.

“We see that the education industry, along with many other sectors in Indonesia, is undergoing rapid transformation and digitisation. We believe that Gredu, with its holistic approach to serving the school’s stakeholders and value chain, is in a great position to capitalise on this change as well as help improve the education quality in Indonesia,” Chua said.

The year 2019 was an exciting year for the Indonesian edutech sector as several Indonesian startups announced high-profile funding rounds.

Ruangguru announced a US$150 million Series C funding round led by growth equity company Global Atlantic and venture capital firm GGV Capital in December. The startup’s co-founder Adamas Belva Devara Syah also made headlines with his appointment as a presidential special staff by President Joko Widodo.

HarukaEdu raises its Series C funding round in November, which was meant to support its expansion to B2B services.

Zenius also announced their funding round in October and had launched a free-to-access content offering since.

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Image Credit: Tra Nguyen on Unsplash

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As a startup lawyer, I tend to see when things go wrong for companies and their founders more often than most people. To save you having to untangle easily avoidable issues, here’s a list of the most common pitfalls for startup founders.

The good news is that these issues are easy to avoid with a bit of planning.

Not giving love to your cap table

Your cap table needs to be accurate and mirror the formal share register. We have seen fundraising transactions postponed or even cancelled where founders have not been able to clearly explain their cap table to investors.

Warning signs that you might have a cap table issue looming:

• Inaccurate cap tables not showing convertible instruments at all, or incorrectly.
• If you’ve promised options or shares to people but not clearly documented these arrangements. For example, indicating to employees that they might get a certain percentage of the company in shares or options could end up being legally binding and yet confusing – a percentage of what and when??

How to avoid this pitfall? Keep track of both your cap table and your share register, whether using specific software or a simple excel spreadsheet. Only allocate options under a formal share scheme approved by the board.

Bonus tip: ESOPs and cap tables.

A common question we get from founders is, “how does my ESOP appear on my share register and/or my cap table?”

The answer is that options are not recorded on a company’s share register or on its public filings. However, cap tables typically include the ESOP allocation together with any other convertible instruments such as convertible notes or warrants. This means that your current share register might differ from your fully diluted holding (i.e. after accounting for your ESOP).

Not having vesting arrangements in place

It is a misconception that founder vesting is something that only investors like to see. Founder vesting agreements are key from the outset: Covering founders and also any advisors who are offered shares. Why? They protect your startup if founders or advisors move on quickly, by enabling the company to claw-back unvested shares.

Also Read: 8 common legal mistakes made by entrepreneurs

Having a large percentage of a company’s equity held by people who are no longer contributing is not efficient – those shares could be used to incentivise others in the business, plus new hires.

What to do: Get vesting agreements in place for founders and advisors. For founders, this should cover some, but most likely not all, of their shares.

If shares are to be issued to advisors upfront for future services, the company needs a mechanism to buy back some or all of those shares, not just if the advisor leaves, but also if they don’t deliver what was expected.

Signing the term sheet without negotiation

When doing a capital raise, most of the tricky legal and commercial issues are set out in the term sheet. Whilst term sheets are usually legally non-binding it is important to negotiate them with the help of a lawyer before signing.  It is difficult to get investors to go back on what was already agreed upon.

What to do: Engage a lawyer at the term sheet stage. An experienced startup and VC lawyer can review and provide comments on a term sheet in under a couple of hours.

This is a good investment if, as in most cases, it helps you secure more balanced documents and deal terms.

Bonus tip: Short form term sheets

Be wary of short-form term sheets that appear to leave all the key issues to the long-form transaction documents. Whilst you’ll probably sign this kind of term sheet quickly – the likelihood is you are simply delaying the real discussions until later.

If there are investor-friendly deal terms you’ll want to know early on in the process so you don’t waste time, and then not proceed with the deal.  For extra tips, watch this video guide on negotiating a series A term sheet.

Underestimating the time taken to fundraise

Documents are becoming standardised and financing rounds closing more quickly. That said, the process always takes longer than founders think. Series A rounds can take three months from signing the term sheet, especially where there are lots of moving parts (e.g. if you have a lot of investors to deal with or several existing shareholders).

Founders sometimes get ‘deal weary’ at the end of a long process and concede material points just to get it over the line. Therefore, have realistic expectations on the timeframe from the outset and, if necessary, start the fundraising process sooner if cash flow is tight.

How you can minimise the fundraising timeframe:

• Start early.
• Get organised. Set up and maintain an electronic due diligence folder (sometimes called a ‘data room’) before you’ve started the fundraising process.  This should contain all your indexed company documents, records, and signed agreements.
• Don’t leave the disclosure process until the last minute on a fundraising transaction – disclosure is critical to protect the company and founders against claims by investors.
• Use a complete checklist to streamline the closing process.

Making everything too complex

Speed and simplicity often carry the day. Startups can go wrong when they make things complex, especially when it comes to fundraising.

Warning signs: If the convertible note you are negotiating is now 20 pages or more, you’ve probably defeated the purpose of using a note in the first place.

If you are raising very small funding round but the investment is only drawn down in tranches and/or involves KPIs, you might well be speaking to the wrong investors.

How you can avoid this:

• Take the easy route where you can. Use standardised terms for convertible notes like the KISS but check with your lawyer on the terms – they can point out quickly the key points to negotiate (if any).

• Work with good series A templates such as the Singapore VIMA model documents and don’t try to reinvent the wheel.

• Raise a little less money if you can do so much more quickly on simpler terms.

Agreeing to harsh terms with early investors because you need the cash

Conceding material issues in early seed rounds can set a precedent in future fundraisings. It’s not the type of thing that you can ‘fix’ down the road.

For example, if your first round of investors ends up with a twice participating liquidation preference (which would not be considered to be market standard), your future investors are likely to ask for the same, or worse. This becomes more material as the funding rounds “stack” on top of each other of course.

Also Read: The biggest legal traps startups fall into

The same applies to control rights. For example, requiring all investors to approve certain board matters (rather than a majority) is inefficient and may encourage future investors to ask for the same (ending up in approval gridlock).

How you can avoid this? Think about the next round when you are negotiating the current one. Stick to market standards and spend time negotiating the key economic and control rights rather than issues that make little difference to your end goals.

Letting your record-keeping lapse

Bad record-keeping will cost you time, money and aggravation down the line and make you look disorganised when talking to investors.

Depending on where your startup is incorporated, you will have certain statutory and filing requirements.  In some countries (such as Singapore), you may have a company secretary who helps you with this.

Startups move quickly. One minute your company has a few ordinary shares held by a couple of founders, and before you know it there are investors, several classes of preference shares, convertible notes, and an ESOP.

What you can do to make it easier:

• Work with a company secretarial firm that understands the dynamic startup environment so that the paperwork approving transactions and matters can be prepared quickly. Some company secretaries now offer to keep all necessary files on an online platform for easy house-keeping.

• Ensure all signed documents are stored in electronic files and updated regularly. This will speed up the process when distributing information to investors.

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Ideas take birth every moment, but not each one succeeds.

There are many reasons why this could happen. Sometimes it is due to lack of resources; sometimes it is due to inadequate research. Planning and implementation are also factors that play an important role.

In today’s article, I’m listing five important questions that you must ask yourself before getting your tech startup idea out in the market.

How are you going to fund your startup?

The first step to bring your tech startup idea to life is to arrange funds. Developing an app or website would require money and not every investor you approach will let you use his or her money right away. He or she will want to see a prototype.

And even if you’re able to convince an angel investor, it will take months to close the deal. So, have other sources. Decide if you want to use your savings, take help from friends or family, or win money through app contests.

So, before you plan to build your million-dollar idea, outline how you will arrange the funds for your tech startup.

Will you focus more on the mobile app or the website?

The next important question is whether you need an app or a website to implement the idea. If the user needs to log into the service frequently (e.g. social media), you’ll need an app. But if it includes plenty of calculations and analytics (e.g. HRMS) to help the users, go for a website.

Also Read: What different types of investors are there for funding your startup?

Then, consider compatibility, maintenance, and upgradability. When you upgrade your app, users will have to download it again to use the features. That’s not the case with websites. But through an app, your service is easy to access.

So, get into the details of your idea and research your target market to decide whether you’ll develop a mobile app or a website.

How will you monetise your idea?

Once you have decided on the platform – website or app – chalk out your revenue strategy.

You can go for the freemium model where you provide some services for free while charging for the others. It works for products such as cloud storage or music streaming apps.

You can also opt for the subscription-based revenue model, as in CRMS or wealth management software.

And if your idea is to build a marketplace to connect customers and businesses, you can earn through commissions on transactions. You can even opt to play ads and earn through them.

Depending on your tech startup idea, research your competitors, interview your target users and find all the potential ways to monetise.

How will you attract the top talent?

Implementing your tech idea will need talented professionals too. But, a team of programmers, web developers, and UI designers won’t be easily attracted to something that doesn’t even exist. You will have to make efforts to hire top talents who understand your vision and sync with your idea.

You can scour freelancing sites or take help from your network. And then, list out the various ways you can use to attract those potential talents. You can offer them the opportunity to work remotely, or the freedom to experiment with their creativity.

Remember, it’s not always about money. So, work on all the possibilities.

How will you stand out from the crowd?

Even if you all the resources, this won’t ensure success. You have to be different. When we started InVideo, an online video editor tool, things were not easy for us as the market is already crowded with many online video editing tools. However, our easy-to-use, simple, interface won the battle for us.

So, find spots where your competitors lack. Your offer can either be a missing feature, a few tweaks for a smoother experience or a pricing model different from your competitors.

Also Read: How to finally get your startup idea off the ground in 2020

You can even target a specific customer segment with features that suit them. The possibilities can be endless; you need to observe.

Find what makes you unique in the crowd, before you decide on a grand launch.

Yes, putting a tech startup idea on-air is easy. But making it a successful venture is a path full of twists. It will take dedication, hard work and even some sleepless nights. But even before that, you should have got a clear vision for the future of your startup.

These five questions are vital to helping you decide if your tech startup idea is feasible enough to put to practice.

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Editor’s note: e27 aims to foster thought leadership by publishing contributions from the community. Become a thought leader in the community and share your opinions or ideas and earn a byline by submitting a post.

Join our e27 Telegram group, or like the e27 Facebook page.

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Millennials of today wish to find their dream jobs once they graduate from college. And they are extremely sensitive about the roles and responsibilities that are put on their shoulders once they are hired.

Lending a job in market-leading companies is an achievement in itself.

Still, startups hold their fort that lets their interns learn many things and gives benefits that no leading business can. But is this a good decision? Let’s find out.

Asia is home to continuous progress that has taken the exponential leap from past years. Southeast Asian startups have raised US$8.58 billion in the first few months of 2019, which is very much near to what US startups have raised.

The opportunities for exponential business growth are opened, and this is the best time to start your first job or take an internship at one of these young startups.

Not only their working environment, but their work approach leads their employees to become the next great leader of the market and brings the best out of them. If you wish to shape your career the right way and dream of becoming the next great entrepreneur, startups of Southeast Asia can teach you many things. 

And this earned knowledge becomes a keystone of paving your road to a successful career.

Internships at Southeast Asian startups: Benefits earned

Startups of all regions are not the same. The concept behind a startup heavily depends upon the customer requirements and possible market transformations.

As Southeast Asia is demonstrating a solid growth in the areas of healthcare, technology, and fintech, the chances of succeeding with the best approaches are bright. And it also provides you with the benefits as your company takes the best efforts to bring out your best.

Startups of all regions are not the same. The concept behind a startup heavily depends upon the customer requirements and possible market transformations.

As Southeast Asia is demonstrating a solid growth in the areas of healthcare, technology, and fintech, the chances of succeeding with the best approaches are bright. And it also provides you with the benefits as your company takes the best efforts to bring out your best.

Friendly work culture

Startups heavily differ in terms of work culture and employee lifestyle when compared to other typical corporate environments. You get to make the best out of your free time; social gatherings, a lot of fun activities to do, and more- are the common ways startups use to keep their employees engaged.

Also Read: Why you should never intern at a startup (especially e27)

You get to work in a culture that is not at all praising based but is real and dynamic at the same time. The credit for achieving success in a task never gets snatched away from you. Because your small team strength helps you get identified easily, and you get credits in your sack.

Moreover, this fun collaboration with your co-workers develops relations with them and makes your regular work life fun and enjoyable. They ensure their employees stay fresh and efficient throughout time and become productive than ever. 

You can never go wrong with a bit of music, good food, and a friendly environment- workers love to participate! Hence, the first benefit you earn is coworker support.

Learn to socialise

If you are an introvert, this might come as a blast for you. But with time, you get habituated to this routine and start enjoying. You learn to make and keep relations with not only coworkers but with any person sitting beside you- isn’t that a crucial skill of an entrepreneur?

Well, we are just getting started.

For example, a Malaysian startup Jewel Paymentech gives their employees a friendly work environment by arranging monthly movie nights, holiday rewards, gym, and swimming pool, and many more.

The point is, they keep engaging their employees in activities to lead a healthy and happy life. And according to SWIFT, this startup is one of the promising fintech companies in Asia.

Shape your career the right way

The work culture of your company is an important aspect that affects your career. A friendly work culture lets you learn many skills from different persons working with you. As an intern, this positive work environment helps you find what you are best at and shape your career in the best way possible.

The skills you learn from your work makes all the difference.

For example, Shopback.sg is a Southeast Asian startup that gives its employees enough room to learn and grow from experienced E-commerce veterans. Their team onboard keeps learning from the experienced veterans to manage their growth with the best approaches.

Exposure and growth

A typical corporate company is highly structured, where each employee has to report to their superior. The chances of getting enough exposure are very low if you are a slow learner. But startups are the best bet for you. They give their employees equal attention and a chance to grow at the best pace.  

Knowledge on latest techs

As Southeast Asian startups expertise in the field of latest Fintech, the newest technology concepts get implemented. The concepts of AI (Artificial Intelligence), Blockchain, cybersecurity, and more- are the fundamental technologies these startups expertise in.

Including the website security measures like generating SSL certificates, preventing hacks, securing online payments, and more are their work areas.

This helps you earn knowledge on the practical implementations of technology- preparing you for the future where technology rules the world. The example of a Korean Beauty product seller, a promising e-commerce giant of the future, Althea fits here. 

This e-commerce websites owners have a flat structure- where every employee is handed over responsibilities equally. It helps learn the aspects that the company assigns you and expertise in the same field.

Productivity measures

Startups are best at measuring employee productivity. As every employee holds significance and contributes to the success of the company, they strive to maintain work productivity. The perks of friendly work culture include increased work productivity. As the responsibility to manage and maintain your work front is on you, you can learn to plan out your work strategy and, ultimately, improve productivity.

Think creatively

Your surrounding environment affects your thinking. Alike corporate hierarchy, startups tend to integrate each and every employee in every process. The innovators or the founders of the startup can teach you many things from their experiences. But the primary benefit you earn is, you get to experience their innovative thinking.

Also Read: 11 tips for managing the digital workforce of your startup

Thinking creative and innovating new solutions to solve common problems is what startups are good at, and if you work at a startup, you get to experience their creativity. 

You can find your lost path to being a creative person too. For example, the innovation of online ride-hailing has led startups to use a uber clone app solution to provide the same features and services, but with an innovative mindset that they implement through their ride-hailing solution.

Opportunities for a bright future

An added advantage of working at a startup is: you get to try on different hats. They assign you various tasks to perform that can help you learn many things that you would never think of learning. 

Therefore, startups encourage you to become a multi-tasker rather than becoming a role-specific employee. It helps you to make your resume bigger and better; after all, all these skills should be mentioned in there!

The startups located in Southeast Asia are highly technology-dependent. Their work culture, employee mindset, corporate profiles, working environment, and more makes them the best choice of freshers.

If you ever get a chance to load in their boat, never let it get away as the benefits offered by the company and the skillsets you can develop are beyond comparison.

The time for starting your internships in any company is getting near. It becomes crucial to identify the field where you want to work. But keep in mind the benefits and possible opportunities a company can offer you. 

Instead of running behind the money factor, it is essential to develop the skills that can help you develop excellent skills for your future betterment.

Also, if your dream is to become a successful entrepreneur in the future, Southeast Asian startups have got the power to make you shine and develop entrepreneurial skills while working with their innovative minds and truthful approaches.

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Editor’s note: e27 aims to foster thought leadership by publishing contributions from the community. Become a thought leader in the community and share your opinions or ideas and earn a byline by submitting a post.

Join our e27 Telegram group, or like the e27 Facebook page.

The post Why working at a startup is a better way to launch your career appeared first on e27.

One of the areas in the tech industry which has been gaining more and more attention over the years is edutech.

At the 5th Asia-Pacific Meeting on Education 2030 (APMED2030) meeting, Shigeru Aoyagi, director of UNESCO Bangkok, stressed the correlation between education and poverty eradication.

“Of all factors considered, low literacy skills are most strongly associated with poverty, socioeconomic disparity, and particularly the gap between rich and poor,” he said. “Reducing poverty requires that countries invest in equipping their populations with functional skills in reading, writing, and numeracy.”

As bringing equal access to education becomes of primary importance to governments, more and more founders are realising the ways in which technology can be used to reach a wider network of people.

To realise this common goal, there have been many investments poured into startups working in the sectors. The Southeast Asian (SEA) region has recently seen high-profile funding rounds raised by the likes of Ruangguru, HarukaEdu, Zenius, Edukasyon, and Gredu.

In an exclusive interview with e27, Nick Hutton, Regional Director Asia at e-learning platform D2L, talks about the challenges faced in promoting e-learning adoption in this region –and why edutech in SEA still has a long way to go….. compared to other countries.

A common misconception

Before we delve deeper into the challenges, Hutton believes that it is important to clarify the common misconception about edutech.

“There is a common misconception about edutech in Southeast Asia. It is believed that e-learning is fully online. But in reality, it happens in three forms: face-to-face environment, blended learning, and complete online learning,” he says.

Also Read: Undeterred by rejections and insults, this duo has built a cool edtech startup and got funding, too

He further explains that the first way edutech can enhance learning is through a face-to-face setting, where software is used to enhance learning in institutions. The second way is through blended learning where a certain amount of time is spent in class and online courses. The last way is through complete online learning.

“Asia and SEA are far behind in the use of technology in assisting learning,” he continues ” North America has taken the lead, UK is pretty ahead, Australia and New Zealand to an extent. Hong Kong and Singapore have also largely incorporated it,”.

But Hutton is of the opinion that SEA and Asia are still largely untapped markets when it comes to incorporating e-learning into mainstream institutions. 

For example, an institution in Indonesia with 40,000 students will use technology in content –but it is still not seen as a campus-wide initiative.

As the regional director of D2L, which comes from the phrase “desire to learn”, he believes that what sets D2L apart from the rest of the edutech startups, is that the platform allows learning in all three forms.

Instructing the instructor

Keeping up with edutech trends is essentially important as technology radically aims to change everything we do, from banking, socialising and purchasing. That also means, convincing teachers to move away from orthodox modes of learning to more unconventional ways.

It is not difficult to introduce Millennials or the younger Gen-Zs to e-learning. In fact, students expect to learn in a “Facebook-style” manner, he jokes. But the main problem in this region are the teachers, he stresses.

Also Read: Businesses are learning to code without coding

“They see it as ‘replacing’ rather than enhancing. It is difficult to convince them to change when they have been teaching in one particular mode for 20 years,” he underlines. “And that is a difficult conversation to have.”

A changing landscape

When asked about how the government fares in encouraging edutech adoption, he does not hold back. “Governments are still very much in the dark ages,” he says.

According to him, governments find it very difficult to recognise “accredited courses that lead to a degree in a completely online environment.”

However, that being said times are radically shifting and ten years ago it was far more important to get a degree from an accredited institution because it had a lot more kudos associated to it and also because of organisations in the past looked for somebody with an undergraduate degree of a certain level in a certain field.

He comes to the conclusion that despite all the hurdles, there is a new trend of “lifelong learning” evolving. Working professionals are starting to become more interested to have more skills to compete in the marketplace.

And employees are changing the way they are accepting these online certificates. Degrees do not have to be from institutions and the future of work and learning is driving that.

The problem for higher education arises because now, and in the future potentially there will be other deliverers of education around who are starting to deliver great education in a lifelong learning mode.

Noticing the shift in the learning landscape which poses a certain amount of threat to these institutions, they are now aiming to use technology much more smartly.

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Image Credit:  Susan Yin

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