Storytelling is nothing new. In fact, storytelling dates back to very ancient times and predates the emergence of writing.

Today, storytelling continues to thrive and has been incorporated into companies’ marketing strategies to humanise their sales messages and form closer relationships between the brand and its audience.

But how does sales storytelling work? How is it possible to create a narrative in which your customer is the protagonist and your product or service is the solution that will save them from their problems? Let’s find out.

What is sales storytelling?

In the corporate world, storytelling refers to the practice of developing a narrative around a product with the intention of adding more value to both it and the brand. In storytelling, it’s necessary to transcend the characteristics of the product or service. The best storytellers go further and reach more subjective levels in their audience to create an emotional bond between them and the brand.

Sales storytelling seeks to create connections with potential customers by making them the protagonists in the story.

The goal is to arouse emotions through convincing and relevant stories. This enables the brand to retain the attention of the target audience and positively impact it.

Also Read: Are you leveraging social media platforms to increase your sales?

Three examples of good storytelling

Coca-Cola

Coca-Cola’s campaigns are some of the greatest examples of corporate storytelling. If you look carefully, the brand’s commercials and other advertising always tell a story related to friendship, family, togetherness, and love.

The product, a carbonated soft drink, appears in the background. The focus is almost never on the characteristics of the drink, but on the values ​​and feelings, the brand wants to pass on to its consumers.

Huggies

Huggies manufactures diapers, and its main competitor is Pampers. In Canada, the latter held all hospital contracts, and until 2016 was the market leader.

That year, to compete with Pampers, Canadian Huggies launched a campaign using storytelling. They created a narrative that convinced mothers to choose Huggies instead of products from their biggest competitor.

“Hugs” means “hugs”. Therefore, the sales narrative was based on a series of scientific studies that show how hugging improves several aspects of babies’ health, such as:

• vital signs in newborns;
• the immune system; and
• brain activity.

As a result, sales of Huggies diapers increased by 30 per cent that year.

Check out the video:

The stories told by Airbnb resonated with audiences worldwide because they generated identification with the narrative and emotional involvement. Viewers felt encouraged to learn more about the local culture presented in the video they watched.

As you can see, knowing how to tell a good story can help you engage your audience and make them identify with your brand. And that makes all the difference in sales results.

How to create your brand story

The protagonist is the audience. Anyone who thinks the hero of a brand’s storytelling is the brand is wrong. To tell a good story, you need to understand that its protagonist is your audience. That’s where to start. The best stories are about people, not brands.

Therefore, you need to understand that storytelling is a tool your brand can use to connect emotionally with people, not to pester them with something that doesn’t interest them.

People consume and share storytelling for the same reason that they recommend a movie or TV series: because they enjoyed the story! People enjoy stories that include characters they identify with.

That’s why the protagonists of your stories must align with what your audience wants to hear.

Stories such as the one about the homemade cake-maker who lost her job and recovered by using her talent to bake delicious cakes – and sell them – tend to generate empathy and be successful.

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COVID-19 has changed our daily lives, and we are in the process of creating a new normal. With governments around the world encouraging people to stay at home, there is a corresponding surge in online, cashless transactions.

For instance, Singapore’s largest bank, DBS Bank recently shared that the volume of cash deposits and withdrawals have plunged 11 per cent in the first three months of this year, as compared with the same period last year.

Meanwhile, the volume of cashless transactions has nearly doubled during the same period. Some 100,000 customers have transacted online for the very first time, of which 30 per cent were above the age of 50 years.

Other Singapore banks such as UOB saw online grocery shopping growing 44 per cent in Q1 2020 as compared to 2019, and OCBC Bank saw customer spends rising by up to 50 per cent on food deliveries apps, online video as well as on music streaming services including Netflix and Spotify.

With more and more transactions moving online, it serves as an ideal breeding ground for money laundering and criminal activity, including around illicit activities such as human trafficking, arms trafficking, and illegal trade. Prior to COVID-19, the annual cost of financial crime to the economy in Asia Pacific was estimated to be at US$166 billion, according to the 2018 Thomson Reuters True Cost of Financial Crime report.

The damage could range even higher, per the United Nation’s Office on Drugs and Crime 2018 estimates which pegged the amount of money laundered each year is equal to two to five per cent of global Gross Domestic Product (GDP), roughly between US$800 billion and US$2 trillion.

Also Read: Top posts from e27 contributors to help you prepare for the new normal

In order to adhere to the new normal, regulators and banks are working together to meet the increasing demand for virtual and mobile payment solutions, however, it is not without friction. Money laundering-related activities are becoming more far-reaching, complex, and sophisticated, with regulators seeing the need to improvise stricter compliance requirements.

But the need to keep up to speed with the ever-changing rules now seems a challenge to some banks and Financial Institutions (FIs), with some already suffering major setbacks to their compliance programmes.

In Australia, its second-biggest bank Westpac has 23 million alleged breaches of AML laws and has set aside AU$900 million (US$586 million) to cover various fines and penalties. Similarly, Swiss regulators hit Julius Baer with a number of sanctions as a fall out from its own money laundering incident.

The Industrial Bank of Korea was recently fined US$35 million to resolve criminal charges against its AML program, which made it possible to funnel large sums of money.

Since 2008, regulatory fines imposed on FIs around compliance lapses stood at over US$300 billion; and this is expected to surge due to the growing complexity of compliance regulations.

Different monetary authorities in Asia are taking action to help reduce the impact of financial crime. For example, The Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) offered guidance to assist authorities with their Anti Money Laundering (AML) and counter-terrorist financing risk management practices during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Also Read: 4 ways the banking sector can respond to the digital transformation

In Singapore, The Monetary Authority (MAS) reassured that it will adjust selected regulatory requirements and supervisory programmes to enable financial institutions to focus on dealing with issues related to the COVID-19 pandemic, alongside providing monetary support amidst the crisis.

The global standard-setter for combating money laundering, the Financial Task Action Force (FATF), is encouraging governments across the world to work with financial institutions and other businesses to use the flexibility built into the FATF’s risk-based approach to address the challenges posed by COVID-19 whilst remaining alert to new and emerging illicit finance risks.

Some banks today are still relying heavily on manual efforts for their AML compliance. Rules-based applications produce 95 per cent false alerts, creating huge backlogs and massive ageing of alerts. With legacy systems, the costs of managing the process to read, analyse, and implement the changes in operations will only increase over time.

To align with the changing regulations, banks and FIs are opening up new digital onboarding capabilities for any type of banking services. Some banks are working with regulatory technology companies (regtech) to tap on technologies such as Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence to assist their internal teams and better manage compliance risk.

The algorithms created can be used to identify risky customers, accounts or transactions and file timely reports with regulators while minimising operational costs with significantly reduced false positives. By doing so, FIs can focus their efforts more on their core business and build a sustainable compliance framework within the company.

With COVID-19, one can expect thousands more online transactions a day, but banks cannot afford to miss monitoring any transaction, especially dirty money. That is the reason, automation with the help of regtechs, helps keep money launderers at bay capturing unsolicited activities that could be easily missed by humans.

Also Read: Rise of marketplace banking: Is anyone winning?

2020 is a year of ‘new normals’ and everyone has their part to play in helping the economy recover. Digital transformation is no longer new but more relevant than ever when change is happening faster than expected.

There is a need for banks and FIs to quickly pivot and consider the risks and challenges created by these rapid and radical environmental and regulatory changes to ensure uninterrupted operations even during difficult times like today.

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Left to right: Alex Jatra (CFO), Jakob Rost (Co-Founder, CEO), and Chiragh Kirpalan (Co-Founder, COO)

Updates: The previous version of the article incorrectly stated Strive and AC Ventures as participating investors in the funding round. We apologise for the inconvenience.

Indonesian fintech startup Ayoconnect today announced that it has raised a US$5 million in Pre-Series B funding round from BRI Ventures, Kakaku, and Brama One Ventures.

Existing investors such as Finch Capital and Amand Ventures also participated in the funding round.

With this funding round, the company has raised over US$10 million to date, with its previous funding round announced in 2017.

In a press statement, Ayoconnect Co-Founder & CEO Jakob Rost said that the funding will be used to invest in tech and grow its network of partnerships.

The company also named Alex Jatra –a former executive at HARA, Dattabot, and Kejora Ventures– as its new CFO.

It has also been growing its team to up to 100 staffs in two offices in Indonesia and India.

Also Read: Indonesian bills payment app Ayopop raises Series A funding round led by Finch Capital

Formerly known as Ayopop, Ayoconnect started out as a mobile bill payments app for end-customers.

As a B2B fintech company, it connects bill providers (such as utilities, telcos, and education institutes) with online and offline channel partners (such as minimarkets, postal service, and financial institutions), so that end-consumers can pay their bills more seamlessly within Ayoconnect’s network.

As of July 2020, Ayoconnect said that it has processed more than 40 million payments through its 600 bill providers and 40 channel partners. Its partners include DANA, LinkAja, PT POS Indonesia, Bank BRI, Bank Permata, Bukalapak, Lazada and Pegadaian.

It also counted Strive and AC Ventures as existing investors.

The company claimed a 400 per cent growth in transaction volumes within six months from January to June this year.

Ayoconnect was founded in November 2015 by Rost, who was the Managing Director of Lazada Indonesia, with Co-Founder and COO Chiragh Kirpalani, who had already had two exits for his previous companies.

In 2018, it also named Aditya Vora as its CTO.

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Image Credit: Ayoconnect

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Every business needs one thing: customers. Without customers, there are no sales, and without sales, there is no business. The development of the digital world opened the door to many new businesses and allowed many innovative ideas to be realised. However, reality has shown that sometimes a good idea is not enough.

A good idea for a product or service needs to be transformed into a value proposition that delivers clear benefits to customers.

That is a value proposition that will help them solve a problem, fulfil a need, or move from state A to state B.

Most people don’t want to buy product A or service B, but rather solve a problem using product A or service B. The sale happens when the customer feels the perceived value of the solution is higher than the price he will have to pay for the product or service.

This idea was brilliantly articulated in 1960 by Professor Theodore Levitt, who said, “People don’t want to buy a quarter-inch drill, they want a quarter-inch hole” and, more recently, by Seth Godin: “Don’t find customers for your products, find products for your customers.”

In fact, some studies show that one of the main reasons why startups fail is that they lack a market for their products and services. Perhaps the products and services did not meet any consumer needs, or the companies couldn’t communicate the benefits of their products and services.

Also Read: Time to pivot, not panic: The startup advantage to dealing with a pandemic

Digitisation is not panacea

Since lockdown, many brick and mortar stores and businesses have come online for the first time. Going online is must if a business wants to survive in a time like this, but digitisation is not the “vaccine” for your business.

For years, we have heard hundreds of consultants talk about digital transformation and how technology can help you serve your client better, improve their experience, and help you retain them.

It’s a promise that sells easily, but it also carries several risks. A large part of creating a digital strategy involves the “customer journey”. To map this, the service provider analyses the customer’s experience at different stages – from seeing an ad to purchasing the service – and details the interactions at each point of contact.

Unfortunately, this type of advice is causing many companies to react to the effects of the pandemic in the wrong way. We can’t keep trying to digitize our operational processes and customer relationships based on how things were done up until a few months ago.

All the measures (like social distancing) put in place to protect the spread of the coronavirus have abruptly changed the way we engage in practically all activities in public places.

Thus, the pandemic is an opportunity to discover new ways of relating to customers – not only by adding digital channels but also by completely rethinking our relationship with our target audiences.

How do we do this?

Let’s start with the “why” – by thinking about, say, why our clients want to make a bank transaction today. Why they would be willing to buy pants without trying them on? Why they would continue to order their favourite dish from a restaurant, without the soothing music or the pleasant company of friends? Why they would trust an online medical diagnosis instead of visiting a hospital?

Also read: How do you optimise the customer experience during a festive rush?

What do they really expect of us as service providers? Write down all the ideas that come to mind. Then think of a new offer, a new way of relating to your customers, and implement simple solutions that allow you to test new relationship avenues that not only replace the previous experience but also improve it.

Think of solutions as more than just a patch. Instead, consider them as things that are here to stay, that will accompany us into the new normal. Start with a couple of loyal clients and make them a part of the design, brainstorming, solution development, and testing.

Don’t be afraid of making mistakes. Take advantage of the fact that everyone is in the pilot stage. This is just one more experiment among many. But if we do something new – not just create a digital version of the reality we know – we will have advanced our companies towards a truly new stage.

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With more and more companies having to shift to a virtual office due to the onset of COVID-19, cybersecurity has also become an increasingly pertinent issue. Attackers have been using more sophisticated methods with increased efforts to launder money, disrupt opinions, and other fraudulent activities. 

These attacks are only expected to increase during this crisis, and it’s imperative that both companies, as well as individual internet users, remain vigilant during this period. 

Understanding the threats

Threats such as targeted ransomware, malware, and magecart are expected to increase during this period, and they’re usually used to target organisations like banks. 

When companies shift to a WFH model, it may also result in security loopholes that can become an area of primary concern. Those working from home don’t have the bolstered security of an office environment, as most home networks usually have weaker protocols. 

This will result in hackers having easier access to the network, and be able to send through phishing emails that have deceptive links and attachments. Google reported that more than 18 million phishing emails were sent through in April. 

Also Read: Work-from-home: Watch out for cyberthreats amid COVID-19 pandemic

Once an employee clicks on the link, the hacker will be able to have access to the device and may even receive the employee’s personal information to cause harm to the company’s systems. 

Another threat that’s on the rise in IoT and Drones. Most IoT devices have back doors that allow the manufacturer to access the device even after everything has already been assembled. Even self-driving vehicles aren’t in the clear as they have the potential to be hijacked. 

Similarly, Drones can also be equipped with certain devices such as Wi-Fi sniffers that are used to intercept the information. These criminals will then be listening for any sensitive information or credentials to gain access to corporate networks. 

Finally, you’ve got the threat of video conferencing. With the workforce expected to be working from home for a while, video conferencing has become an integral tool for most of us. Some video conferencing tools, however, have recently experienced breaches. There have been cases where someone unknown has managed to gain access to a video conference. 

These potential breaches can result in the loss of sensitive information and are considered an invasion of privacy. In such situations, it’s recommended to: 

• Set meetings as private. You can either choose to set a password or control who will be able to enter the room. 
• When selecting your video conferencing tool, you’d want to take a look at the security requirements and what these individual vendors can offer. 
• Keep your VTC software up to date by installing the latest software updates. 

Also Read: Meet the 9 cybersecurity startups graduated from ICE71’s 4th batch

Protecting yourself or your company from a cyberattack?

With so many imminent threats, what’s the best way forward? One of the easiest ways to protect yourself is to use strong passwords across all platforms and devices used. You should make sure that the passwords are not only strong but also unique and long. It’s also better to use machine-generated passwords, and you may even want to consider using a passphrase.

Email security is also key when you’re working from home. You should make sure that emails can only be accessed via a company’s VPN which helps to create a network connection that’s encrypted, and will require authentication of the user and/or device. 

During this period, companies must take this opportunity to increase both the security of their businesses along with personal bank accounts as these few months has unfortunately resulted in a significant increase in all manners of hackers, scammers, and phishers.  

If all of this seems overwhelming, you’ll just have to remember that cyberattacks are a sustained threat, and hence, there’s a need to take the necessary measures to protect your organisational data.

If you’re not sure where to begin, it’s a good idea to invest in a managed service provider that can help you with strengthening your security against ongoing threats.

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Clik, a fintech startup operating in Phnom Penh, announced that it has completed a US$3.7 million seed funding round led by Openway and Poems Pte Ltd, the investment holding company of Phillip Capital, a Singaporean financial house with over US$35 billion under management.

The funding round also included several global angel investors, a third of which are Cambodia-based.

The fintech startup said it plans to use the funding to scale its product engineering and customer service teams as it progresses towards its official launch by the end of 2020.

Clik was founded in 2016 as a payment aggregator enabling consumer payments from cards, wallets, and bank accounts while enabling merchants to accept such payments. It claims to be Cambodia’s first independent mPOS and SoftPOS merchant acquirer.

Clik provides all these payments in contactless mode.

The company also has a single, easy-to-use platform that focusses on building consumer loyalty to boost merchant profits. Having developed their own eKYC solution, Clik can onboard consumers and merchants in minutes while adhering to the highest data privacy, security and banking regulatory standards.

Also Read: Cambodia joins the club with a newly established fintech association

Merchants have access to analytics that are driven by fully anonymised data, while consumers benefit from cash-back incentives that reward them for repeat purchases.

They currently have close to 2,500 merchants and five financial institutions in their beta programmes and access to over 56,000 more merchants via their partners.

Partnerships

The funding is claimed to be Southeast Asia’s largest-ever seed round in mobile payments, loyalty programs, data visualisation, business intelligence, and cloud data services.

Clik is also taking part in the National Bank of Cambodia’s Central Bank Digital Currencies initiative, in which the startup will integrate its platform soon.

Besides that, the fintech startup is also working closely with MYPINPAD, which is said to be the only company in the world to achieve Payment Card Industry (PCI) Security Standards Council (SSC) certification for its software-only Contactless Payments on Commercial (CPoC) off-the-shelf solutions.

“After two years of scaling up and defining the fundamentals of our regional market strategy, we’re ready to accelerate our growth with the closure of our seed round. Our goal here is to offer merchants and consumers a much-needed and attractive digital alternative to cash,” said Matthew Tippetts, CEO and Co-Founder of Clik.

New senior hires

With the funding announcement, Clik also named Patrice Vignes as COO, who will also be joining the company’s board.  Vignes’ most recent stints were as CFO of Amret and other multinational corporations prior to that.

Also Read: How student entrepreneurs can tap into the fintech ecosystem in Cambodia

Clik also named Olivier Mermet as Chief Design and Strategy Officer. Mermet is a brand strategy and customer experience specialist who was previously a Brand Design Director at Procter & Gamble and a VP of Design, Retail and Customer Experience at Estée Lauder.

Denver Gibson, previously Clik’s deputy CTO, has also been promoted to CTO. Co-founder and Ex-CTO Darren Jensen remain with Clik as a Blockchain technology advisor to aid Clik’s development in that sector.

Matthew Maddocks has joined Clik’s board as Independent Director, chairing the Risk and Compliance Committee.

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Image Credit: Clik

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As populations all over the world buckle down into a new era of social distancing and community quarantine ushered in by the COVID-19 pandemic, a huge boost has been given to the development of digital landscapes and solutions as countries learn to adapt to the new normal.

While there are widespread uncertainty and anxiety over what the future will look like in a post-pandemic world, one thing is for sure – technology is as important as ever.

The need for widespread adoption of technologies is all the more pertinent in emerging regions such as Southeast Asia and Latin America, where significant population segments still struggle to gain access to basic digital resources.

However, this pandemic-fuelled push towards digital evolution has encouraged innovators and businesses across these regions to step up, paving the way for the development of more effective solutions and deeper cooperation across nations to combat the spread of COVID-19.

Southeast Asia: Staying ahead of the game

In a region that is embracing its digital transformation, Southeast Asia has made huge progress in terms of digitalising its societies even before the onset of the pandemic. The region saw a rapid growth in its internet penetration rate, from 25 per cent in 2014 to 63 per cent in 2019.

Part of this growth involved countries such as Indonesia, Thailand, and Singapore leading the way in terms of e-commerce, mobile banking, and ride-hailing.

Also Read: “Latin American startup ecosystem is 10-12 years behind India”

When news of the widespread contagion of a novel coronavirus originating in Wuhan, China, first broke out in Southeast Asia, the region was relatively quick to implement strict measures to curb the spread. Governments and businesses had to quickly find ways to cope with the new restrictions, and this often meant turning to technology.

Businesses, decision-makers, and innovators across the region positioned themselves at the forefront of developing tech solutions to help their societies cope with the shifting demands brought about by the pandemic.

From telemedicine to e-commerce, Southeast Asia has been strengthening its existing tech infrastructure while rapidly developing new solutions to stay ahead. In Singapore, telemedicine platforms have continually evolved to meet the spike in demand, having seen at least five times more sign-ups during the pandemic.

In Vietnam, the health ministry worked closely with tech companies to develop an online reporting system and database for suspected and confirmed cases of COVID-19 as well as people who were in close contact with such cases.

Banks and financial institutions across Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, and the Philippines have also been rapidly moving towards going fully digital.

Latin America: Embracing solutions

When the pandemic first hit the shores of Latin America, governments across the region were swift to implement some of the most stringent measures to minimise the spread.

However, with its high internet penetration rates and large mobile-minded middle class, the region is prime for embracing and adopting tech solutions to adapt to the new way of life.

Also Read: BlaBlaCar raises US$200M to expand in Asia, Latin America

With an internet penetration rate of close to 70 per cent, Latin America is positioned way ahead of the world’s total percentage that stands at 58.8 per cent. The region also forms some of the world’s largest markets for social media, and countries such as Mexico and Brazil have been dominating sectors such as e-commerce and ride-hailing.

While the statistics seem promising, Latin America continues to struggle with low levels of entrepreneurship that is largely necessity-based. The growing demand for digital solutions in light of the COVID-19 pandemic, combined with the lack of resources and innovation to meet it, creates a huge potential for solutions from without the region to play a part in enhancing the well-being of Latin American society.

Paving the way for a partnership

While Southeast Asia might be moving full steam ahead with its evolving digital landscape, it is not enough for its developments to be confined to the region alone. COVID-19 does not discriminate, and the only way to successfully combat the virus is for the world to do it together.

Knowledge-sharing is now more important than ever, and Latin America, in particular, has much to gain from the technological know-how of Southeast Asia.

While Latin America and Southeast Asia appear to be vastly different at first glance, being separated by geography, language, and culture, the two emerging economies have more similarities in common than meets the eye. The similar population sizes, economic realities, and rapid increase in internet penetration rates underscore the adaptability of digital solutions across both regions.

In addition, both economies have much to gain from deeper cooperation. Southeast Asia possesses the technological capabilities and know-how that Latin America is ready to embrace, while Latin America serves as a largely untapped market that can provide raw materials and human capital to fuel the growth of Southeast Asian businesses.

Also Read: BlaBlaCar raises US$200M to expand in Asia, Latin America

While the pandemic intensifies the already existing logistical and operational challenges to enhanced cooperation between the two regions, governments and businesses need to take a step back and assess the bigger picture. Without mutual cooperation and knowledge-sharing of critical information and digital solutions, it would be impossible to fight a virus that pays no respect to borders.

As the pandemic continues to push for a convergence of interests between the two regions, it is prime time for Southeast Asian tech companies to turn their heads towards Latin America and explore viable strategies to navigate the political, economic, and social elements of expanding to the market. One such viable strategy is a concept known as soft-landing.

Soft-landing as a strategy for business expansion

Expansion to distant and untapped markets is often accompanied by a host of risk factors and obstacles. Soft-landing is a concept that aims to minimise these risks by supporting a controlled launch with limited resources and connecting the company to a network of local stakeholders.

The soft-landing process is best led by soft-landing facilitators, whose role is to help companies scale in far-flung and foreign markets.

The main characteristic of soft-landing facilitators is that they understand how to scale in new markets given the information asymmetry. Soft-landing facilitators offer a broad knowledge of the socio-political, regulatory, and financial contexts of a market.

They provide key tools such as talent acquisition and network and business alliances to support processes such as customer acquisition and the tropicalisation of strategies.

Some significant benefits of business deployment through soft-landing include:

Cost reduction: Normally, costs of entry to other markets can be significant and exceed business budgets. Having reliable information and the support of locals can avoid cost overrun.

Time to market: The time it takes for each company to position itself within a new market will depend on the level of preparation it has and the knowledge of the entry barriers into the new market.

The soft-landing facilitator has local resources that accelerate the operational, commercial, and legal establishment, providing access to strategic information, decision-maker contact networks, and talent.

Also Read: Regulating online hate speech is a big, muddy, complicated mess

Cultural adaptation: The cultural and business practices in each market determine the way of doing business. Language, communication peculiarities, and specific local knowledge within each country are keys for a successful landing into a new ecosystem.

Deployment and reputation: Having a well-reputed local facilitator vouching for the new entrant is crucial when it comes to accessing institutions, local businesses, and potential customers. This is why having local professional teams becomes critical for business development and facilitates integration from the beginning.

Prime time for soft-landing

As Latin America trails behind Southeast Asia both in terms of the arrival of the virus and reacting to it, there is a huge opportunity to learn from experience and embrace suitable solutions for its own societies.

It is also prime time for Southeast Asian tech companies to capitalise on the opportunities for expansion and knowledge sharing amidst this pandemic and contribute to the uplifting of communities and the global fight against COVID-19.

Several Asian startups have already taken the leap and are actively seeking to expand and share their solutions with the Latin American market. DiMuto, a Singapore-based agri-food trade tech solutions platform, has been making headway in the region’s strong agricultural sector by driving the digitalisation of supply chains.

Talkpush, a Hong Kong-based recruitment platform, has also been on the path of expansion in Latin America as the demand for digital recruitment solutions amidst COVID-19 continues to increase.

The concept of soft-landing provides a viable strategy that can help first-time business ventures navigate the complexities and intricacies of the Latin American market. Soft-landing facilitators are well-positioned at the forefront to promote deeper cooperation between these two emerging economies and take their growth to greater heights.

Internationalise your business and expand your network

Latin Leap is looking to partner with promising tech scale-ups that are ready to embrace the vibrant Latin American market, as well as fellow investors and venture capital studios that want to play a part in growing the economies of Southeast Asia and Latin America.

Whether you are a tech company seeking to internationalise in the Latin American region, or a venture capital firm looking to expand your network and portfolio of companies, we would love to hear from you. For more information on Latin Leap, visit our website at https://latinleap.vc/.

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One of the characteristics that every good investor looks for in an aspiring entrepreneur is resilience, or the ability to learn from and bounce back after a failure. You don’t have to have previous startup problems to show resilience – everyone should have a story of tackling a tough challenge with minimal success but using the failure to move on and achieve an objective.

With startups, almost every entrepreneur I know has failed at least once, often several times, but never gave up, and ultimately achieved their goal. Evan Williams, for example, before co-founding Twitter, started a podcasting platform named Odeo. The platform couldn’t compete with Apple’s podcast section of iTunes, so he recast his efforts into microblogging, and the rest is history.

The challenge is how you can enhance your own ability to bounce back, and highlight that attribute to your team and outside constituents, including investors and business partners. If done well, such failures can actually give you an advantage, rather than a disadvantage. In my experience, here are some key preparation strategies that work:

1. Practice and highlight your conviction to never give up. Many experts tell me that more startups fail simply because their founder gives up, than for any other reason. Real entrepreneurs have told me that they become energized when told that they are facing an insurmountable barrier. Their satisfaction comes from proving naysayers wrong. Howard Schultz, who built Starbucks into a billion-dollar success, started with a strong conviction that people would pay for “an experience” of fresh-brewed cappuccino by the cup, rather than buying equipment. He never gave up, despite multiple setbacks.

2. Actively seek and learn from the counsel of smart people. Some entrepreneurs, unfortunately, become more and more isolated in hard times, or surround themselves only with friends and supporters. Make sure you actively interact with and show appreciation for people smarter than you, even if they don’t always agree with you.Both Bill Gates and Warren Buffet, although extremely successful in their own domains, share a great relationship as mentors for each other in learning how to deal with today’s challenging business and social problems. People who listen are always more resilient.

Also Read: Lesson from the failure of several startups in the sharing economy

3. Demonstrate decisiveness rather than paralysis by fear. Making any decision is almost always better in business than no decision. You have to look at making decisions as a positive learning opportunity, rather than a chance to fail. Every investor wants to see entrepreneurs who are willing to take responsibility for action and get it done. When it’s time for a decision, your gut instinct should never be your only input. All of us have access via the Internet to multiple expert sources, insights, and data to support our own experience, to make more relevant and timely decisions.

4. Maintain an optimistic outlook, rather than pessimistic. Optimism is a mindset fueled by confidence in yourself and an ability to gather and filter knowledge. Confidence is built by finding your purpose, playing to your strengths, and taking tough challenges in small steps to show progress. It also helps to emulate the success of others with similar goals.
Don’t be lulled into thinking that optimism is a personality trait you either have or don’t. Optimism can be learned, by really looking for your successes, rewarding yourself for your progress, and using a mentor to steer you in the right direction.

5. Use metrics in lieu of feelings to measure progress. Don’t let your feelings get you down, with no quantification of what failed, or what you need to do to come back. People who set quantified goals and objectives for themselves and their teams, and measure results, always know where they stand and are not surprised by feedback from others.

The ability to bounce back also requires continuing attention to your physical needs and feelings. Don’t forget to maintain a healthy balance between business and personal demands, including family, sleep, and time off for enjoyable activities. Make sure that you take the time to internalise the strength that comes from struggling, and the insights that come from failure.

Then you too can become one of the rare entrepreneurs, sought by every investor, who continually bounce back stronger from every failure until they achieve success beyond everyone’s wildest dreams.

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The article was first published on nfinitiv.

Image Credit: Sean Pollock on Unsplash

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The Ohmyhome team

Ohmyhome to set up ops in Philippines

The story: Singapore’s Ohmyhome will set up operations in the Philippines to enable Filipino homeowners and searchers to buy, sell, and rent properties in a simple, fast, and efficient manner.

What is Ohmyhome?

Ohmyhome is a do-it-yourself platform that connects buyers and sellers directly at no cost. While the other portals are focused on selling real estate, Ohmyhome is designed to serve customers in the entire buying and selling process by providing a unique hybrid model of a DIY platform and full-fledged agency services.

The portal is able to this by leveraging on its advanced technology capabilities and on its team of professional agents.

The firm claims it sees an estimate of 2,000 housing transactions per month, has garnered 300,000 app downloads, over 175,000 active users, and 15,000 unique listings of properties to date.

The company is backed by Golden Equator Capital and K3 Ventures

Singapore, Australia sign digital economy agreement

The story: Australia and Singapore have signed a Digital Economy Agreement (SADEA) to harness digital transformation and technology to expand trade and economic ties in the region, says an Open Gov report.

The benefits: The SADEA will enable trusted cross-border data flows without unnecessary and costly requirements such as data localisation, while protecting consumers’ privacy and businesses’ proprietary information.

Australia and Singapore have agreed to set new rules to prevent unnecessary restrictions on the transfer and location of data, improved protection for software source code, and ensure compatibility between e-invoicing and e-payment frameworks.

The post In brief: Ohmyhome to set up ops in Philippines; S’pore, Australia sign digital economy agreement appeared first on e27.

Gobi Partners originally started in 2002 in China. Today they have about 250 investments across Asia with 40 per cent of them based in Southeast Asia (SEA). In a fireside chat with Kay Mok Ku, the Managing Partner at Gobi Partners SEA, we learned more about their investment philosophy and what to look forward to in a post-COVID-19 world.

Getting to know Gobi

• “VC is meant to bridge a gap, be it for a sector, an underserved market, or even gender”. This is what essentially drives Gobi’s investing philosophy.
• In SEA, they have three seed funds focussed on Singapore, the Philippines, Malaysia, and Indonesia. For Vietnam, they are tied with Grab Ventures.
• Their main fund is a growth fund. The growth fund is typically in sectors that have reached maturity; in the last decade it has been mostly mobile internet-based in SEA.
• For seed funding, they are keen on upcoming sectors such as supply chain fragmentation (COVID-19 has clearly ruled it out as an important issue), 5G enabled services, IoT, robotics, etc.
• They are lead investors in the majority of their deals and typically ask for a board seat.
• Their average ticket size is US$1-2 million for seed stage and growth is US$3-5 million. They also usually do follow up investment in their portfolio.
• They made 30 investments in the last two years and target for 10 this year. So far they have completed less than half of that target.
• Timing, market, and team — they focus on these traits in a startup.
• In 2021, they are thinking of going back to series A and focus on deep tech.

Also Read: Travelio secures US$18 M Series B funding round led by Pavilion Capital, Gobi Partners, to serve temporary housing demand

Coping with COVID-19

• Pre-pandemic was growth mode — now it’s all about survival mode. Its all back to basics. E-commerce, logistics, gaming are doing well. The pandemic in a way disrupted the landscape.
• The market is doing the job of cutting the competitions. All the startup has to do is focus on surviving.
• This is not a good time for exits but opportune time for collaboration.
• Fundraising will be challenging to figure how to survive, even it means considering hibernating.
• The gaming industry will never go away but its hit-driven, like movies. Localising games is a bigger opportunity in SEA.
• Down rounds are usually more prevalent during market downturns, so Kay Mok advises investors that the fact the company is able to raise at a lower valuation and survive, is better than the competitor who held onto its valuation and failed as it could not raise.
• What is more important– a new concept or a big market? Kay Mok says you need both and more. A new concept for a small market will not attract VC funding; a big market with an existing concept has no defensive moat so VCs will be concerned. You need more than both because execution is key!
• Maybe VCs will become more like influencers, and founders will select the best influencers they would like on their boards. In a de-globalised world, we may see more Chinese investment coming into Southeast Asia, as well as other emerging markets, given the barriers, they will increasingly face in developed Western markets.
• US tech market is dependent on foreign talents, whereas Chinese tech hubs such as Beijing and Shenzhen utilize the best talents from all over China. If the US does not shut itself from global talent, it still has a good chance to maintain its lead over China. However, if the US shuts itself to talented immigrants, all bets are off.

Good to know

• They have a focussed fund in Pakistan but not in any other countries in Indian subcontinent.
• But they are open to Indian entrepreneurs who are serving SEA audience.
• They have a TAQWA tech fund that looks for innovation in the Muslim market which will expand to the Middle East, Africa.
• Indonesia is as good as three markets combined in SEA.
• Gobi invests in startups outside of Asia who want to enter Asia markets. For supply-side, deep tech deals they look for expansion possibility into Southeast Asia. For demand-side focused and those that require an understanding of local market conditions, it might be harder to justify.

Pro tip

• Reading martial arts novels (that Kay Mok Ku really enjoys) is a great way to learn how to do business in China.
• The best VCs are the ones that behave like The Godfather. They spend most of their time listening rather than talking and they are very decisive once they make their decisions.
• An effective coach/board member generally has to have a broad interdisciplinary experience, be a good listener, and provide well-reasoned opinions for founders, especially if they have no other co-founders. Using a Chinese military concept, a VC is more like a commander to a commander than a commander to a soldier.

Resources

• Find out Kay Mok Ku’s views on the prop tech sector: Can SEA’s proptech come back to its pre-COVID-19 glory? Experts speak
• You can view the full recording of the webinar and know his thoughts on e-payments, the tourism industry, deeptech, and Indonesia here:

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The post Why Kay Mok Ku of Gobi Partners thinks VCs will become like influencers in a post-pandemic world appeared first on e27.