According to the latest Nielsen Report, US consumers of 18 and older spend close to 12 hours each day engaging with podcasts, which is up nearly one-and-a-half hours from a year ago.

Also, the number of heavy podcast listeners— those listening every day —grew by more than 3.6 million. The U.S. podcast audience could double by 2023 as per Nielson.

The number of podcast listeners is growing exponentially. And this reiterates the importance of optimising this media and making it an integral part of your content marketing strategy.

No matter what business you are in —the fight to stand out always remains and podcast helps you achieve just that. Providing a perfect mix of education and entertainment, podcasts are a compelling, engaging, and useful medium for businesses and listeners alike.

Most companies do not realise the true potential of podcasts and how including it in the content strategy can help their brand build trust, earn goodwill, and position themselves as a market leader.

Also Read: Afternoon News Roundup: Vietnamese startup Waves raises US$1.2M seed funding for its podcast service

Here are five reasons why podcasts should be an essential part of your content strategy:

Low competition means more opportunity

Online marketing channels are highly competitive—and it is not easy to stand out. The challenge all marketers face is to find a platform that gives them maximum returns with minimum cost.

There are more than 80 million Facebook business pages, but only 850,000 podcasts, and the numbers reduce when you search by topic, making podcasts just the right content marketing platform for your business.

This confirms that it is the right time to start one of your own or reach out to popular podcasts in your niche for an interview or a talk.

Convenient to consume

A podcast is an ultimate multi-tasking content format making it easy to consume. According to Edison Research, 59 per cent of Americans do chores while listening to podcasts, making it an efficient way to educate oneself while doing mundane tasks like cleaning, grocery shopping, etcetera.

Unlike written and video content such as blogs, webinars, e-magazines, YouTube, etcetera, which requires a consumer to devote a specific time regularly to entertain and educate—all that a podcast listener has to do is plugin and play.

That allows people to consume the content as per their convenience. Therefore, we can see the massive jump in the number of listeners monthly.

Also Read: The podcast fever: why are listeners tuning in more frequently than ever?

Podcast ads are cost-effective and engaging

As per Nielsen, nearly 70 per cent of podcast listeners agreed that the podcast ad they experienced increased their awareness of new products/services. Showcasing that consumers are engaged listeners, and they do get influenced by what they’re hearing.

The storytelling and conversational format of podcasts tend to gravitate the listeners more—that’s the reason ‘host-read ads’ are more popular as it adds personal touch and credibility.

Also, people go to podcasts because they are interested in a particular topic that allows brands to reach an extremely attentive audience while leveraging trust and loyalty.

Establish yourself as a thought leader

The best way to boost your brand’s reputation—and build authority, expertise, and credibility in any industry is through publishing knowledgeable and engaging content. Where all other forms of media are getting saturated, podcast presents an exciting opportunity to help catapult your influence and pave your way as a thought leader.

Also Read: How to use podcasts to enhance your brand visibility and reach

Listeners get to hear personal stories, strategies, experiences straight from an expert’s mouth, which brings any subject to life—which gives podcast an edge over other forms of media.

Strengthens your relationship with customers

Online media platforms like blogs, newsletters, Facebook, etc. have allowed businesses to establish a more direct relationship with their customers.

Still, nothing can beat podcasts as it helps you connect with your audiences at a more personal level. Hearing your voice, your expressions, and listening to ‘live’ you make a whole lot of difference. They can put a name and voice to you and build a healthier and more personalised relationship.

From giving interviews, or having a chat with successful personalities from your industry or participating in an exclusive Q&A episode to dive into customer questions, podcasts opens a lot of doors and helps you create a long-form dialogue between you and your customers.

It is time to swoop in and become a winner in your industry by making podcasts an essential part of your content strategy. The best way to start would be to tune in to the podcasts specific to your industry, schedule a few talks on existing shows.

Once you get a taste of this medium, chances of you walking away from a platform that allows you to connect with your audience in an uninterrupted and unfiltered way are zero.

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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. We are discussing inclusivity at work and women all of March. Share your thoughts, tips and best practices on how we can make the startup ecosystem more inclusive, gender and culture diverse.

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

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Finance

Bank Mandiri’s Mandiri Capital plans to invest up to US$5M in startups

Mandiri Capital Indonesia (MCI), a subsidiary of Bank Mandiri, has said that it seeks to expand its investment portfolio in startups to tap into the growth of digital businesses in the country, The Jakarta Post reported.

According to MCI President Director Eddi Danusaputro, the company plans to provide an initial investment of up to US$5 million for startups targeting especially the e-payments sector. 

MCI stated that it would give out between US$2 million and US$5 million to acquire at least 10 per cent of the selected startups’ shares.

Danusaputro confirmed that MCI has invested a total of US$70 million in 13 startups since 2016. They include Amartha, a P2P lending platform for micro-enterprises owned by women; Investree, a small and medium enterprises-focussed lending platform; and Crowde, a P2P platform focused on farmers.

Before investing, MCI said it would take into account several parameters such as whether the startups are involved in providing solutions, have appropriate business models for sustainability, a sensible and profit-oriented projected valuation, and have reliable founding teams. 

The founding team of a startup is also an important factor in decision making as it will never invest in a startup with a single founder because of its high-risk.

Business

Blockchain startup OKCoin expands to Singapore, adding Singapore currency as digital assets exchange

OKCoin, a fiat-focussed digital asset exchange platform, has opened an office in Singapore. 

The company said it will add the Singapore dollar to its digital assets exchange, enabling traders in the country and Brunei to exchange the currency for bitcoin and ethereum, with additional trading pairs coming soon.

The Singapore dollar joins the US dollar and the euro as the third fiat currency to become available for purchase or withdrawal in exchange for digital assets through the OKCoin platform.

Also Read: Indonesian P2P lending startup Amartha snags Series B funding led by LINE Ventures, to grow lending capacity across country

Hong Fang, Chairman of OKCoin, said: “By adding the Singapore dollar to our global digital assets exchange, we’re doing our part to help make the blockchain a vital part of everyday life for the people of Singapore, while also moving closer to making digital assets readily available to the whole world.” 

Singapore’s blockchain market is predicted to reach US$272 million by 2022.

The Singapore office becomes OKCoin’s eighth international location, joining the US, Hong Kong, England, Malta, Argentina, Vietnam, and the Philippines. 

OK Group develops a range of blockchain initiatives, ranging from data and technology to education and investments. Its business lines include OKCoin, a fiat-focused digital asset exchange; OKLink, a technology service provider that provides blockchain information and big data services; OK Capital, an investment arm focussed on the blockchain industry; B-Labs, an incubator program for early-stage blockchain companies; OK Engineering Academy, an open-source developer community working on blockchain technologies.

Vingroup’s VC arm closed down, focussing its fund to real estate subsidiaries

Vingroup Ventures, the venture capital unit set up by Vietnam’s conglomerate Vingroup in December 2018, has ceased its fund operation. 

The conglomerate, as reported by DealStreetAsia, has renamed the unit to Vinhomes Industrial Park Investment JSC in February and has now transferred its ownership to its real estate subsidiaries, Vinhomes JSC and Green City Development JSC.

Also Read: Vietnamese retail tech Vingroup to sell US$1B shares to SK Group

Vingroup said that the move is a restructuring exercise to foray into the industrial real estate sector. 

“Vingroup will continue to consider venture capital investment opportunities in technology, but has delegated this mission to subsidiaries so that they can select investment options within their own sectors,” said a Vingroup spokesperson.

Vingroup Ventures’s existing website and LinkedIn page mention a US$100-million corpus with no investment made since its establishment in 2018. Just in January, the CEO of Vingroup Ventures, Linh Thai had left the firm, along with other employees.

OneDash launches personal shopping messenger app to tackle e-commerce cart abandonment issue

OneDash, an e-commerce marketing technology startup, has announced that it has launched a chat-to-checkout service in the form of a messaging platform. 

The platform allows online shoppers to perform direct, in-app, add-to-cart functions, with the option to check out in the very same chat to eliminate the need to exit a chat session to complete a purchase.

With cart abandonment becoming a major issue in online retail, OneDash is looking to address this pain point by optimising the online shopping experience, providing a real-time service for customers to see their purchases from start to finish.

OneDash’s app also enables interactive video allowing customers to connect with retail outlets, in real-time to enhance customer engagement to boost brand loyalty.

Oleksandr Matviishyn, CTO of OneDash, said: “We were driven by the idea of making video more affordable and providing the ability for every business to create, distribute, and monetise their video content, while at the same time, improving the production speed of interactive video content. During the implementation phase, we came up with a few additional ideas like advertising, Messenger commerce, and live streaming to make the platform even more robust.”

OneDash was founded by Rayhan Perera in 2017 with a vision of creating a more immersive shopping platform, allowing consumers to better engage with brands online.

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Picture Credit: Mandiri Capital Indonesia

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Why IT professionals are intrigued by EVOLVE Online

Is your business in pursuit of next-level digital transformation in 2020? Are you keen on learning how the latest cloud technologies can help you reduce costs, accelerate innovation, improve customer and employee experiences, and much more?

If so, make EVOLVE Online one of your “must-attend” virtual conferences this year. This live virtual conference explores everything you need to know about building an infrastructure platform to power your digital business.

Best of all, EVOLVE Online is designed for IT professionals of all levels, from experienced digital-savvy professionals who are looking for an edge in their careers to businesses that are taking their first steps towards digital transformation.

EVOLVE Online covers a wide spectrum of topics that are relevant to today’s IT professional, including:

• App modernization: We’re living in an app-driven world and EVOLVE Online is ready to equip IT professionals with the insights and skills needed to successfully build, deploy and manage modern and cloud-native applications.
• Multi-cloud: A deep dive into hybrid and multi-cloud solutions. Participants learn how they can prepare to build, run, manage and secure business-critical applications on any cloud.
• Networking and security: Explore the full L2-L7 stack of network services, including network virtualization, load balancing, SD-WAN, network management, extensibility and more.
• Digital workspace: As the workforce becomes increasingly mobile, businesses need to adapt. Discover how to securely enable productivity across endpoints – empowering employees to work wherever they are, and on multiple devices.

Headliners and experts

The upcoming conference on 24 March 2020 features two executive speakers who are very well-respected in the industry, Pat Gelsinger (Chief Executive Officer, VMware) and Bruce Davie (Vice President and Chief Technology Officer, Asia Pacific and Japan, VMware). Both keynote speakers have years of experience and leadership in the IT industry, as well as a wealth of knowledge that past conference attendees have gained a lot from – based on a series of glowing reviews left by the attendees.

EVOLVE Online also features many VMware experts who will share their product and solutions expertise. These experts will also answer your questions on the conference’s live chat platform.

What you can expect from EVOLVE Online in March 2020

VMware EVOLVE Online 2020 will be launched on 24 March 2020. The areas covered in the upcoming event include the abovementioned areas – multi-cloud, networking and security, app modernization, and digital workspace. For a detailed look at the specific topics that will be discussed in each of these key areas, click here.

The virtual conference also includes a lineup of engaging activities that elevate it beyond most online events. You can chat with experts, participate in hands-on labs, test your skills, apply your knowledge, and possibly even walk away with attractive prizes!

Attendees are welcome to participate in the area of interest that relates directly to your primary job function. You can also explore other areas and topics by attending the presentations and live discussions within the seamless online environment. No matter what your priorities are for digital transformation in 2020, VMware EVOLVE Online will give you the knowledge and skills you need to realize them.

Registration for the virtual conference is now open. To secure your place, submit your registration at the VMware EVOLVE Online website.

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Asia surpasses North America in corporate VC-backed deals

Asia has surpassed North America in corporate venture capital (CVC)-backed deals in 2019, according to CB Insights’s 2019 Global CVC Report. 

North America has been leading since 2014 in global CVC investments. However, last year Asia’s deal share spiked to 40 per from 22 per cent in 2014.

Most of the deal volume was driven by Japan and India, whereas China saw a drop of 19 per cent in CVC deals and 41 per cent drop in funding. This could be attributed to the trade war between the US and China.

Asia, however, has also not fared well in fundraising with a drop from US$19.9 billion a year to US$15.9 billion in 2019.

Vertech Capital partners with LAB.PH to accelerate the growth of their combined portfolio

Singaporean advisory firm Vertech Capital has announced a partnership with LAB.PH to support large-impact technology integrations in the ASEAN region with their combines portfolios.

LAB.PH is an economic development management firm in the Philippines.”This partnership furthers both organisations’ commitment to innovation that empowers sustainable development across ASEAN.

We are excited to combine LAB.PH’s economic and social analysis with our expertise in investment and smart cities to identify data-driven growth opportunities and truly quantify the impact in the region” said Sheryl Foo, Director for APAC & EMEA at Vertech Capital.With this alliance, the duo aims to grow their portfolios in the Philippines and produce opportunities for local companies.

Bytedance launches new music streaming service Resso in Indonesia

Bytedance, the company behind TikTok, has officially launched its latest music streaming app Resso in Indonesia, says a DailySocial report.

The service is currently available on a freemium model.

The streaming service also offers other features such as lyrics sharing, social sharing, commenting on songs, and music-accompanied GIFs and video clips.

Resso has already won partnerships with major music labels like Sony Music Entertainment, Warner Music Group, and Indian music giant T-Series.

Also Read: Morning News Roundup: Mandiri Capital to invest up to US$5M in Indonesian startups; OKCoin expands to Singapore

Samsung Ventures, Microsoft’s M12 fund, Comcast Ventures, and SmilegateInvestment make up the list of top 10 most active CVCs in 2019.

Right Hand, the Singaporean cybersecurity firm, raised US$1M from SGInnovate, others

Right Hand, a Singapore-based cybersecurity startup has raised USD$1M in seed funding led by VC fund Atlas Ventures. Other participants in the round include SGInnovate and Entrepreneur First.

The new proceeds will be used towards product development, research and towards data scientist teams.

Since launching Right-Hand’s solutions have been used within government and financial sectors across Southeast Asia and Australia.

Also Read: Singapore-based Group-IB opens inaugural CyberCrimeCon to the public for the first time

“Although humans present one of the biggest loopholes in cybersecurity, much of the focus from both investors and corporates alike have been on various technical solutions like threat detection systems, firewalls, and such. The human aspect is often overlooked,” said Maxim Shkvaruk, Atlas Ventures’s investment director.

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Image Credit: Shutterstock

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The Philippines has become the latest country to join in the lockdown caused by COVID-19 outbreak alongside China and Italy; both are currently among the top five countries with the highest numbers of affected patients detected. South China Morning Post reported that starting on Sunday, March 15 to April 14, Metro Manila will be on a “lockdown” with travel ban.

In a statement, Duterte also said that he might call on China to help with the outbreak as President Xi Jinping had offered help through a letter. The issuance followed Duterte’s meeting with Huang Xilian, China’s ambassador to the Philippines, on Wednesday night discussing the countries’ economic cooperation as well as the challenges caused by the novel coronavirus.

The decision is also supported by experts in the matter such as Dr Anthony Leachon, who is a health reform advocate and former president of the Philippine College of Physicians, who called the lockdown “necessary”. Leachon said that the only way to contain the virus was a lockdown of Metro Manila and its 12.8 million people.

The current situation

So far, the Philippines has 52 confirmed cases and has reported five deaths from the virus. Most of the government officials are of the vulnerable age group (including the President) and had recently been in the same room with a person who is tested positive. This is why most cabinet members have undergone tests and some even decided to undergo self-quarantine for precautionary measures.

The Philippines has a population of more than 100 million, but currently had only 2,000 novel coronavirus test kits available, as assistant health secretary Maria Rosario Vergeire said. Earlier this week, persons could only be tested if they had travelled to a place with a local outbreak or if they had come physically close to an infected person.

The health department said 2,000 more test kits from the WHO would arrive this week. The Philippine Food and Drug Administration on Wednesday approved a test kit developed by the Philippine Genome Centre at the University of the Philippines, which can be made more cheaply and provide results faster than imported kits.

Also Read: Finding solace in Stoicism as coronavirus looms over the economy

Despite the media calling it a lockdown, Cristian Jon Rillera, CEO of Gasmee, corrected the addressing of the situation, saying that the fitting term would be community quarantine within Metro Manila.

How it is affecting the startup community

e27 gathered responses from the startup community in the Philippines and how the government’s decision would affect their operation. The responses have been varied; each one depends entirely on the type of the business and how each runs the day-to-day operation.

For e-commerce, Steve Sy of Great Deal e-commerce Corporation weighed in on the situation. “E-commerce would spearhead the movement of goods for the Filipino people in this time of crisis. We will be in the forefront to deliver essential goods to the people.”

Furthermore, Sy remains positive that this crisis can “produce champions”.

“We need to persevere and we will all bounce back. But to raise funds at such time would be a vulture move from VCs and PEs,” Sy continued.

Another startup that is relatively new in the field, Apex Digital Marketing, has said that the situation is hard on their business, especially having to move the work setting to work from home.

“As a young startup, we really prefer that our employees show up at the office as communication is so much easier when the team is together. But prioritising our employee’s health, we transition to work from home setup after two years of being in operations,” said Edward Solicito, CEO of Apex Digital Marketing Inc.

Solicito added that such force majeure taught the startup that they need to be on top of any situation, especially as managers. “It can be as simple as losing a client or a pandemic. It will affect the team’s productivity and their morale. But if we pull this off, it opens up endless possibilities on how we can scale up our business,” Solicito explained.

Also Read: Coronavirus is driving the world into an economic slump. How to cope up?

However, looking at the bigger picture, Solicito said that the pandemic can be the unexpected cause of closing down of many niched startups, which he believes to be the majority of startups in Metro Manila.

“If you are not a startup that covers the essentials, or a startup that does not have excess capital, it will be tough,” he said.

Pros and cons

Gasmee, an on-demand refueling service, admitted that there are two sides of the situation and both affect the startup. Cristian Jon Rillera, CEO of Gasmee, explained that as an on-demand service, Gasmee’s customers are still able to utilise service even if they are not going anywhere.

The restriction of travel, however, has worked against the startup because it means it has limited people that can be utilised in its service.

As for HR tech field, GrabJobs’ Managing Director Valentin Berard said that the slowdown in hiring and recruitment needs for such industries is to be expected.

In the case of GrabJobs, a SaaS recruitment platform powered by interview chatbots, its mission has always been to help recruiters and job seekers connect smoothly with the help of technology.

“We feel this is even more relevant in this climate of crisis,” Berard said.

How the startups plan to continue

Most of the startups have taken precautionary measures such as temperature scanners, continuous cleaning of our facilities, social distancing as well as encouraging digital-enabled meetings. They also include their team in the decision-making, such as Solicito of Apex Digital Marketing, who asked employees to give suggestions on how they will best implement the work-from-home setup.

As for Gasmee, the precautionary measure that the company take should not compromise the business by “enhancing the technology that it has developed”.

“We need to think about ideas that can utilise our resources, not just the person who can deliver our fuel but also the safety process and other internal processes that we need to enhance,” CEO of Gasmee Rillera, explained.

Venture Capital’s woes

For Venture Capitals, the stakes are higher.

“The business of venture capital is built on relationships and so any situation that restricts our ability to meet others face-to-face and to travel affects our business,” said Bit Santos, Portfolio Operations Director of Kickstart Ventures, Inc.

Santos further breaks down the process of taking pitches and doing diligence in a VC’s daily operation.

“The community quarantine has been heavily impacted as meeting and getting to know the people and teams behind the startups that we meet with are key parts of the process,” he said.

Also Read: Blessing in disguise: How coronavirus is helping China’s tech sector

“We do a lot of business development in support of our portfolio companies, and we’re also facing many challenges to continue conversations with potential partners and customers as they themselves are having to figure out how to continue their operations while keeping their people and partners safe,” Santos added.

Santos admitted that the VC suffered lost opportunities due to cancelled and postponed events, originally scheduled for the first half of the year, as there was also uncertainty about how the COVID-19 situation will unfold beyond the next few months.

For safety measures, VC’s approach is similar to the startups’, with moving all the company’s communications digital. But in the case of Kickstart Ventures, they are also responsible for supporting their portfolio companies.

“We’ll be working closely with our portfolio companies to ensure that they have the necessary support to continue their operations. We’ve been able to extend connectivity support to our portfolio companies so that they can ensure business continuity with alternative work arrangements for their people,” Santos explained.

CEO of Talino Venture Labs, Winston Damarillo, approaches the situation by making sure the VC has instituted business continuity plans within each of its startups and teams.

“We now have a ‘buddy’ system in place to ensure that deliverables do not fall through the cracks, in case someone from the team falls ill. This buddy system also allows us to check up on each other and make sure that nobody gets left behind as we continue to operate remotely,” Damarillo explained.

Taking things to the next level, the VC has already started building a studio to deliver digitised services to partners and clients.

Damarillo also said that the VC learned the importance of being prepared.

“In times like this, having internal systems and tools from Day 1 of any operations is crucial. There’s also a need to create tighter digital collaboration with partners and clients. Being prepared helps ensure that our systems, tools, policies, and culture will be able to support such conditions,” Damarillo added.

Also Read: Finding solace in Stoicism as coronavirus looms over the economy

The takeaways
To have optimism in such distressing time is not foolish, but rather a sign of strength. That was the sentiment most of the Filipino tech communities have shared with us.

“COVID-19 crisis presents opportunities for startups–and many other companies–to seriously think about how they will continue to operate, create products and services, and reach out to their customers digitally, but without losing the human connection. We see opportunities in e-commerce, AI and automation, fintech, logistics, healthcare, foodtech. We just need to reframe ourselves and look beyond COVID-19 and ask ourselves:

“What is the COVID-19 situation teaching us about the future of work?” said Damarillo.

Santos added, “The global economy undoubtedly will slow down and it will affect all businesses, whether established or new, traditional or startup. It may affect some startups harder than others, depending on the nature of its business, its geography and market, and many other factors.”

Also Read: Keep calm and remain communicative: Startup founders share how they cope with coronavirus crisis

“If anything, the COVID-19 crisis has increased the need for everyone to review and reconsider how we live, how we work, and how we conduct business. We’ll all have to make changes and with these new needs may be the kinds of opportunities that startups are well-positioned to address.”

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Anisa Menur Maulani, Lyra Reyes, Nina Palad, Sainul Abudheen K., and Shagun Karki contributed to this story.

Image Credit: unsplash.com/@eugeniopastoral

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