This article is published via a special e27 partnership with StackTrek– a company specialising in using algorithms and data to build and scale programming teams for tech companies. Each week, StackTrek Founder & CEO Billy Yuen talks with top executives about startups, culture, and tech hiring.

Amazon Web Services is the most comprehensive cloud platform that offers a plethora of data tools for its customers with over 165 services catering to literally millions of customers. I chatted with AWS technical evangelist Ian Massingham about data-driven hiring practices, bar-raising, and ultimately, the culture of customer obsession.

How does AWS hire developers?

So Amazon and AWS use the same kind of hiring practices. There’s a couple of different characteristics that I personally feel are unique. The first is, we hire on the basis of something that we call Amazon Leadership Principles and you can find these listed on the Amazon website actually.

There are 14 of them and they describe different behaviours that we think are important for success at Amazon. The most important and the first one of those things is customer obsession. So we’re always looking for team members that obsess every customer needs and have a desire to solve problems for customers and help customers seize opportunities.

And that’s customers of all types, whether it’s an Amazon retail customer or an AWS customer, of course. And then we’ve got 14 of those things like hiring and developing the best itself is a leadership principle, insist on the highest standards, bias for action, deliver results, dive deep. So we have 14 of these different leadership principles that we look for in every candidate that we’re looking to hire.

And then the second of the unique characteristics that we look for is something that we call bar-raising. And the idea here is, when we hire new talent in the organisation, we’re constantly looking to improve the average of the capability level that we have in the teams.

So we’re always looking to hire above the midpoint for that particular pool of expertise in that particular role It’s this idea of constantly ratcheting up the midpoint by hiring more and more capable people.

Also Read: Collaborative platforms are the way forward for future-ready enterprises

Are there any characteristics in candidates that you consider red flags?

We’re looking for people that are bar-raising against these leadership principles that we define. So any candidate that we would evaluate which didn’t demonstrate that they were exceeding that type of capability for that particular role, for that particular seniority level would be a candidate that we wouldn’t necessarily take forward.

But of course, we have opportunities to put candidates into different pools and maybe take a second look at a candidate, if they don’t match for the initial role we’ve looked into. So I wouldn’t describe it so much as red flags, but we do use a very data-driven approach to our hiring practices to try to ensure that we are always hiring and developing the best people that we can.

Are there any specific challenges in terms of hiring tech developers?

In my team, which is the developer of Evangelism, which is the developer relations type of role you might be familiar with, we’re looking for a particular combination of skills.

So those skills are pretty common in isolation, but when you think about combining really strong technical skills, the ability to build with software developers and convey knowledge and transfer value to software developers through the creation of content, through a presentation, maybe demo building which helps developers move forward with their objectives with the cloud, gaining the combination of skills, in the right individuals, in the right locations with the right language skills … you’re looking at a pretty small overlap amongst the few different sites on the Venn diagram.

That can be quite a challenging thing to do.

So, Amazon and AWS have many different teams all over the world. How do you make sure everyone is on the same page?

Yeah, so we use a lot of collaboration tools, as you might guess, inside AWS and Amazon to help our teams collaborate. Using two things like arrow messaging and video conferencing service which we call Amazon Chime, and we have a lot of other tools and systems internally that teams can choose to adopt in order to help them collaborate across different geographic regions.

There really are all ranges of tools available. And in fact, one of the things that we always love to do within Amazon and AWS is taking the good tools that we build internally and make them available for customers to use externally within tools like Amazon Web Services.

So good examples there would be things like Amazon WorkDocs. This is our document sharing collaboration platform that we use internally and we also make available for customers to use so they can collaborate around document work files. There are all kinds of different stuff that we have for them.

Also Read: Diversity in the workforce: Where do we go from here?

Although the thing that I would say about AWS is with our customer-obsessed mindset, we’re always looking to put our teams in the places where our customers need them. So we’re very often, for example in opening new offices or opening new AWS data centre clusters which we call regions, we got one of them opening in Jakarta in 2020, so there’s also a constant cycle of geographic expansion for our teams as well and that’s something that we have a lot of support for in the organisation as well.

Seeing as you have teams in several different geographies, diversity is certainly a topic. Talk about the diversity in your team and in your company.

So the most obvious example of diversity is gender diversity. So trying to make sure that you’ve got an appropriate balance of different genders within the organisation. And that’s something that can be relatively challenging to do with software engineering, where the candidate pool is quite heavily skewed towards people who identify as male.

So you have a hiring challenge, but we do take proactive steps to try to ensure that we’re considering diversity in candidates at every stage of the process.

Working on things like sourcing, trying to make sure that we’ve got the right gender mix at the beginning of the pipeline, as well as making sure that we don’t favour one gender over another, so we’re doing things like candidate assessments. So that’s something that we actively work on. Then the second area, of course, is the diversity of thought.

So it’s about finding people from backgrounds, coming from different ethnic or racial groups, or people who have different educational backgrounds.

Counterintuitively, it might not actually be the best idea to staff your team with a set of carbon copy computer science grads, it’s helpful to have people who’ve entered software development, and a variety of different backgrounds. This is actually really important in the development relations role where we are working with software developers that themselves have really strong diversity characteristics.

And some developers want to engage with developer evangelists, relation professionals that are similar to them, that have similar characteristics. So it’s something that I and my team really spend a lot of time focusing on.

Also Read: TNG Fintech faces lawsuit from minority shareholder in fintech startup Tranglo, failing to materialise the latter’s Series A funding

Is there a tip you’d like to share with people who are looking to build a successful team?

Yeah, I would say don’t compromise on hiring. So insist on the highest standards as one of our leadership principles. It’s better to wait to get the right candidate than it is to hire quickly and make a mistake hiring somebody that you either have to reverse a hiring decision –which is time-consuming and costly – and that obviously can be detrimental –not only to the organisation, but also to the individual that you’ve hired.

And that can also consume a lot of cycles for a management and team perspective as well. So my number one tip for hiring is to maintain high standards and don’t rush the hiring process. It’s better to wait and get the right people than just seize an early candidate because it’s easy to do so.

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As purchasing behaviours change over time, so does the landscape that solution providers operate in. In 2020, we are spoilt for choice. Power now lies with the consumer – but consumers are short on time and often overwhelmed by choice.

Correspondingly, the balance of power for businesses has shifted in favour of those who can provide these consumers with a seamless service that meets not one, but multiple, needs.

The concept of a digital business ecosystem is now becoming widespread, and companies in Southeast Asia have begun to recognise the importance of meeting new and diverse needs under one single umbrella. Digital ecosystems are eminently suited to provide a marketplace for consumers and businesses to interact, connect seamlessly around products, payments and other important functions, and enable accelerated corporate collaboration in the digital age.

The ultimate disruptor

Although Southeast Asia has seen a creeping level of digitalisation over the past decade, particularly among fintech and financial service providers, many of the older generations have remained entrenched in their ways as consumers or as small business owners.

Now, change has become imperative as COVID-19 travel bans, lockdowns and safe distancing protocols have been implemented across the globe. Not only have consumers and businesses needed to change their ways, but governments also have had to adapt and offer support to communities that find themselves shut off or unable to access goods and services in their physical form.

Also Read: How theAsianparent aims to help reduce stillbirth rates in Southeast Asia

On the one hand, COVID-19 has hastened the urgency to move away from physical functions; on the other, it has also meant that mutually beneficial business ecosystems now have the potential to reach a far broader customer base than previously imagined.

As digitalisation across all aspects of our lives becomes more common, we are experiencing a rapid shift across industries; and corporations are battling each other to try and become the dominant player in their respective markets.

Collaboration between players, for enabling greater innovation between businesses – from startups to incumbents – is, therefore, more important than ever before, and prioritising technology investments that effectively differentiate between vendors and ecosystem partners is key.

A changing landscape for success

Despite fintech being at the forefront of the digital revolution in finance, creating an innovative solution by itself has not been enough to succeed. Without group adoption and support from multiple stakeholders to empower and enforce these interoperable systems, fintech companies have often struggled to bring about significant change in the industry or to bring on board the volume of customers needed to make their business successful.

Consumers are looking to choose from a handful of dominant ecosystem drivers for each domain in their lives to give them end-to-end journeys across products and services, and there will only be space for a select few.

An open-source sandbox model is one such answer to this question, allowing participants on the platform to bolster innovation without compromising on ethics or parting with sensitive, competitive data and information. Platforms such as Singapore’s API Exchange (APIX), a not-for-profit enabler of these ecosystems, creates partnerships between highly innovative organisations such as fintech companies, with incumbents such as AMTD Digital, BNY Mellon, IFC, and Mastercard and others, which can allow them to prove their value and become a part of a greater whole.

Also Read: 5 reasons why 2020 is the right time to invest in fintech

Enablers such as APIX allow problem statements to be published, relevant Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) to be uploaded, and optimal solutions to be arrived at by harnessing the creative power of fintech and innovative solution providers to solve industry problems.

Since the beginning of 2020, the number of solutions uploaded onto the APIX platform has increased by 180 per cent – a clear indicator of acceleration within the industry.

Another key focal point of these collaborations for many solution providers and corporates is the valuable data that becomes available in such partnerships. As the value of data has increased in the past decade and the science around leveraging it has improved, these data stories have become a key pillar in many corporations’ growth strategies.

Working together in a digital ecosystem model allows participants to make better use of this data through analytics to drive efficiencies, make their offerings more appealing to consumers and ultimately create a seamless customer experience.

Collaboration brings strength

As we move into a new decade, effective collaboration through business ecosystems is crucial to ensure survival. Ecosystems will allow mutually beneficial solutions to service the region, creating opportunities for fintech and financial institutions alike.

We can expect to see more and more corporates and solution providers joining together in an attempt to meet this demand for integrated ecosystem offerings, and as savvy consumers continue to vote with their wallets, we can expect to see the consolidation of dominant ecosystems in every domain.

Also read: How fintech is disrupting the Southeast Asian payments market

In the dynamic markets of Southeast Asia, digital solutions have the potential to create impact far and wide; often serving those who may not have previously made the digital shift. To effectively reach these businesses and consumers, fintech solution providers and financial institutions should use these digital platforms to pursue collaboration opportunities and partnerships, creating innovative solutions that can have lasting impact on their markets of interest.

These solutions already play a role in the region to minimise cross-border barriers and encourage collaboration between the private and public sectors; a trend which will greatly accelerate in the coming months.

In short, those who collaborate will have a natural advantage over those flying solo in this competitive regional landscape.

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Image credit: Rémi Walle on Unsplash

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Singapore-based proptech startup Propseller today announced a S$1.7 million (US$1.2 million) seed funding round from a list of investors that include Iterative, Hustle Fund, XA Network, Rapzo Capital, Stein Jakob (Lazada co-founder and former CMO/CFO), Ben Neve (Dot Property Founder), three undisclosed “highly strategic investors”, and existing private investors.

The startup plans to use the funding to support talent acquisitions and product development. In a press statement, it said that it aims to triple its team size within the next six months.

Propseller combines the use of an online platform with in-house, salaried property agents to help ease property sales and rent for its customers. Despite being founded in 2018, only in 2019 that the company began implementing the model.

The services that they offer range from indicative valuation and sale with a standard commission of one per cent instead of the usual two per cent.

“A real estate transaction is someone’s most important financial moment, yet most of it is still happening offline, handled by traditional freelance agents who close on average only one sale and six rentals transactions per year,” said Adrien Jorge, Founder and CEO of Propseller.

Also Read: What Myanmar’s proptech industry is doing to stay afloat despite COVID-19

“At Propseller, we believe that consumers deserve an incomparable experience and full transparency for a fair price. It happens that technology is capable of helping to achieve this: we sell homes two times faster than average and our service is rated 4.8/5 on average by our clients. Since our agents close 60 transactions per year each, nine times more transactions than the agents of traditional agencies, we are able to pass part of the savings to our clients hence we charge only one per cent to sellers – half the standard fee – while providing premium service,” he continued.

Propseller said it is currently transacting S$75 million (US$55 million) worth of properties per year.

In June, as per a TechInAsia report, the company was revealed to be one of the eight startups at the first cohort of Iterative programme.

In our special feature in July, Gobi Partners Managing Partner Kay Mok Ku told e27 that the real estate industry in Southeast Asia will “return to its previous glory.”

“If we look at the past long-term property trends in Asia, it has always come back after demand shocks. This might be a testament to the fact that Asia is still urbanising and the long-term demand for property and the related proptech sector is still trending upwards,” he explained.

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Image Credit: Propseller

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Algorand Foundation announced today that it has launched a 12-week accelerator programme for blockchain startups called Algorand Asia Accelerator. The programme is operated by LongHash Ventures, a global blockchain accelerator and venture capital fund.

Largely focused on blockchain, Algorand Asia Accelerator will tap into innovation within Finance 3.0, a financial ecosystem designed and built on the blockchain.

The programme will run from October until January 2021 and will support the selected startups with a seed capital of US$15,000.

Other support in the form of mentorship and training will also be provided across the spectrum of strategy formulation, go-to-market execution, and subject matter guidance across technological mentorship, token economics, marketing, and fundraising.

Algorand’s notable mentors include cryptocurrency company Tether, Securitize, and blockchain-focused VC fund Fenbushi Capital.

In a press statement Fangfang Chen, COO of Algorand Foundation, said, “The ambition of our projects encapsulate the maturing trajectory of the technology, and there is an urgency for the industry to recognise and meet these needs in tandem. Algorand is well-positioned to empower these startups as they take the next step to realize the promise of Finance 3.0, whether it be the strength of our technology, community or network.”

Also Read: In brief: Singapore’s blockchain accelerator Tribe goes virtual for batch 3

The selected startups for this programme are:

StakerDAO

A platform for governing financial assets in a decentralised, secure and compliant manner.

MugglePay

The startup provides SDK for merchants to accept crypto.

DEXTF

It provides a decentralised traded fund protocol for professionals to create and manage digital native funds effortlessly.

Neutron Finance

The startup offers a full suite of DeFi (decentralised finance) products or services including a non-custodial protocol and decentralised exchange.

xbullion

A settlement layer for physical gold, allows users to access physical marketplaces without ongoing custody fees.

LawCoin

Blockchain platform for tokenised investment in litigation and legal claims.

Obsidian Labs 

Blockchain company focussed on developer tools and services.

Also Read: TechCrunch founder’s VC firm leads US$3.7M in ex-Golden Gate employee’s blockchain startup Persistence

Eastern Blu Music Ecosystem

A public system for registration, licensing and distribution of royalties for all players in the music industry.

VeriTX

A digital commerce marketplace for Industry 4.0, to buy and sell digital and physical assets, as well as maintain trusted maintenance and lease records

Yieldy Finance 

A decentralised platform that allows instant payment of goods and services for retail shopping using the buy now pay later mode.

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Image Credit: Algorand Asia Accelerator

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OYO Indonesia names new Country Head

The story: Celebrating the second anniversary of its operations in Indonesia, India-based hospitality tech startup OYO named Agus Hartono Wijaya as its new Country Head.

Who is Wijaya?: Wijaya was previously the Country Business Development Head at OYO Indonesia for almost two years. He is replacing former Country Head Eko Bramantyo.

What you also need to know: OYO has also launched its coffee brand Kopi Cinta for the Indonesian market. It has also secured a partnership with Simas Insurance and Qoala to provide insurance for hotel guests. The company said that it has recorded 5.5 million bookings during its two years in Indonesia and created a job field for 20,000 workers in the hospitality sectors.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, OYO Indonesia introduced initiatives such as Sanitized Stays, donated US$200,000 to support hospitality industry players, and collaborated with Habitat for Humanity Indonesia.

Zomato raises US$52M to kick off its IPO

The story: India’s food delivery giant Zomato has raised an additional US$52 million from Kora Investments, as part of its ongoing US$600 million funding round, according to Economic Times.

Also Read:  Ecosystem Roundup: Nanofilm plans to raise up to US$375M via IPO on SGX; Singapore’s face scan plan sparks privacy fears

Funding use: It is speculated that the company is raising funding in order to kick off its IPO by mid-2021.

More about this: Despite COVID-19 significantly slowing down sales during the lockdown period in April, the company has reported that the sales volumes are back to normal and recovering.

120 Indian startups form association against Google

The story: 120 startups are forming an app developers’ association within a month to protest against tech giants such as Google, Facebook, Twitter, and Apple, according to Livemint.

“We as a group of Indian startup developers will come together to make an independent congregation. They (Google) cannot be a single gatekeeper to the whole Indian internet ecosystem, especially when they claim to be a non-Indian entity. This is similar to the ‘Salt Movement’,” Paytm founder Vijay Shekhar Sharma said.

The reason: This news comes after Google faced accusations for charging Indian developers using its Play Store 30 per cent commission.

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Image Credit: OYO Indonesia

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