Temasek, ABC World Asia join v2food’s US$55M Series B

The story: Temasek and ABC World Asia, an Asia-focused PE fund dedicated to impact investing, have participated in the Series B funding round for Australian plant-based meat startup v2food.

Other investors participating in this round include Altitude Partners, China Renaissance, Esenagro, Horizons Ventures, Marinya Capital, Main Sequence Ventures, and Novel Investments.

Plans: This round, which takes v2food’s total funds to US$80 million, will enable it to expand its team and production facility in Wodonga, Australia, as well as launch its products globally into new markets including Asia, and bring its affordable meat alternatives to more consumers worldwide.

What does v2food do?: Founded in 2019 as a partnership between Australia’s national science agency CSIRO, Main Sequence Ventures and Competitive Foods Australia, v2food’s goal is to create a ‘version two’ of meat. The company uses protein extracted from legumes to create ‘mince’ that looks, tastes and cooks like quality meat.

Also Read: German firm LikeMeat’s founder launches plant-based meat startup Next Gen in Singapore

Made entirely with simple, natural ingredients without genetic modifications, v2food’s plant-based meats provide consumers with convenient, tasty and, best of all, cost-equivalent alternatives.

TurtleTree Labs emerges global champion for Entrepreneurship World Cup 2020

The story: TurtleTree Labs, a biotech startup in Singapore that creates milk sustainably using cell-based technology, has emerged the winner of the 2020 Entrepreneurship World Cup (EWC), concluded at the fifth edition of the Misk Global Forum (MGF).

The startup also received US$500,000 in cash prize.

What is EWC?: It is a pitch competition and support programme for the next generation of entrepreneurs, with 175,000 entrants applying from 200 countries in 2020.

The EWC Top 10 finalists competed at the Global Finals for a share of US$1 million in cash prizes — US$500,000 for first place, US$250,000 for second place and US$100,000 for third place.

In addition, a cash prize of US$50,000 will be awarded to one top scoring startup from each of the following categories: idea stage, early stage and growth stage.

Each of the EWC finalists will also receive a package of in-kind services valued at US$850,000 each.

Also Read: Unable to find good milk to make her dream cheese, this founder created one from stem cells

All Global Finalists are enrolled in the GEN Starters Club, providing a global peer network, mentorship and other support services to help members, especially after the EWC, reach their full potential. Other partners may be engaged to provide post-EWC support.

IoT Tribe announces cohort 2 of deep-tech accelerator

The story: Singapore-based global equity-free accelerator, IoT Tribe, has unveiled its second cohort of 12 startups.

Held in partnership with Enterprise Singapore and the Singapore Economic Development Board on the Global Innovation Alliance initiative, the accelerator will assist deeptech startups on their expansion into and across Asia, using Singapore as a springboard.

The hybrid programme will feature eight weeks of virtual capacity building workshops, events and webinars, followed by a 4-week soft landing in Singapore set to commence at the start of 2021, subject to public health advisories.

The programme will help startups hone their business strategy, perfect their product-market fit, access Asian markets, scale up their processes and teams, as well as raise their next rounds of investments.

The 12 startups selected are:

Aromatec, which offers gentle and efficient ‘cold’ concentration processes to disrupt traditional production processes in the food & beverage industry, from Singapore.

CHECKTOBUILD, a construtech startup that uses IoT and drone systems to provide an autonomous inspection service and business intelligence for large-scale construction projects, from Madrid, Spain.

Cognicept Systems, which provides human-in-the-loop (HITL) error handling with its telerobotic networking technology and remote robot trainers, making unpredictable applications reliable and enabling previously impossible use cases, from Singapore.

Dot Incorporation, which has invented a revolutionary and affordable full-page ‘tactile display’ that can display braille text and tactile graphics simultaneously, from Seoul, South Korea.

LexaTexer, a software company that can build enterprise-scale AI and data-driven applications more efficiently and cost-effectively than alternative solutions, from Berlin, Germany.

Macco Robotics, a startup specialising in creative and user-friendly applications for humanoid robots in the food & beverage, leisure and hospitality sectors, from Sevilla, Spain.

Neuron Soundware, which reshapes machine diagnostics and predictive maintenance by using advanced AI-based analyses to recognise sound patterns in real-time and provide early warnings of mechanical failures, from Prague, Czech Republic.

QLUE, which implements AI-powered smart workforce management to improve workforce response time and productivity, from Jakarta, Indonesia.

Quadible, which offers an AI solution that continuously authenticates users without the need for any user input, by learning their behavioural patterns, from London, UK.

Themis Industries, a startup using innovative technology as an advanced waste treatment solution that can reduce operational costs and eliminate pollutant emissions, from Milan, Italy.

Vyobotics, which offers affordable robotic solutions with plug-and-play modules to serve the needs of various sectors, based in Singapore.

Wild Immersion, the world’s first virtual reserve that harnesses new technologies to create 360° immersive experiences showcasing wildlife in their natural habitat, from Paris, France.

Bangladesh’s B2B commerce platform ShopUp raises US$22.5M Series A

Investors: Sequoia Capital India and Flourish Ventures (lead investors), VEON Ventures, Speedinvest, and Lonsdale Capital (Singapore).

What is ShopUp: ShopUp offers small businesses easy access to B2B sourcing, last-mile logistics, digital credit, and business management solutions. This helps these neighborhood mom-and-pop sellers achieve more profit with less effort, allowing them to focus their efforts towards engaging with their customers and business expansion.

Also Read: Why Bangladesh is the next frontier for tech investment

The startup opened its office in Bengaluru, aiming to expand and hire talent aligned to the company’s vision and goal. E-commerce platform Voonik also recently merged with ShopUp, with both founders of Voonik joining ShopUp as co-founders.

LINE launches social banking platform in Thailand

The story: LINE Corporation has launched LINE BK, a ‘social banking’ platform, connecting the social media platform to KASIKORNBANK.

Under the slogan ‘Banking in Your Hand’, LINE BK lets customers transfer money, open savings accounts, apply for loans, and make payments easily and conveniently from the LINE app.

LINE BK is operated by KASIKORN LINE, a joint venture between LINE subsidiary LINE Financial Asia and KASIKORN Vision Company, a subsidiary of Thailand’s KASIKORNBANK.

Beginning October 15, LINE BK was launched under the Wallet Tab in the LINE app in Thailand.

From this link, users in Thailand can sign up for LINE BK, open as many as five savings accounts, and apply for a debit card, without having to install any additional apps. LINE BK also offers high interest rates for saving accounts and unlocks a range of banking services including personal loans for freelancers and individuals without fixed incomes.

LINE plans to expand banking services into other countries, including Japan, Taiwan, and Indonesia.

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

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

Image credit: 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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I am the founder and CEO of StackTrek and we specialise in using algorithms and data to build and scale programming teams for tech companies. Each week, I chat with top executives about startups, culture, and tech hiring.

Sharing insights from my recent conversation with Trivago co-founder Rolf Schrömgens.

What is the most important thing for an entrepreneur to remember when launching his/her own startup?

Schrömgens: For me, as an entrepreneur, it’s all about yourself. I like to trust myself because I realised and I learned that whether I’m getting financing or hiring the right people, in the end, there’s only one person I can blame and that is myself.

Also, as a manager, you have to make the first decision. Everything starts with you. You create the ecosystem and when your people make the wrong decisions or you hired the wrong people, you are responsible. Although, I’m not so much into making decisions myself but more into building the right ecosystems where good decision-making is possible.

What is the most difficult challenge yet you have encountered when you launched Trivago?

Schrömgens: The first challenge for us was to survive. We had very few resources when we started and we did the coding ourselves. So, basically, our first challenge was that we had no money. Our second challenge was having money.

You start getting your first investor in and from having no money and then now you have a lot of money and you ask yourself, “Now, what do we do with the money?” Now, you’ll have to do more and be faster and so on. But you might not have the right structures in place yet.

Also Read: Do not fall victim to the 7 biggest startup mistakes of all time

That’s really challenging because it puts a disruptive element in the culture. You haven’t yet built a culture and then you get money in and it changes how you operate.

For Trivago, we only did two small financing ground at the beginning. We never did that again but it has helped us grow the company out of the cash flow. This helped us maintain our culture and sustain our internal organisation.

What kind of leader are you in terms of leading your company?

Schrömgens: You can be a great innovator like Steve Jobs, who has all these amazing ideas and pushes them through the organisation. That’s one way to be successful. I don’t consider myself one of those people. For me, innovation has to happen through the organisation. I think it’s more stable that way.

If innovation can happen to many people in the organisation, it’s more stable and more sustainable. So, from my perspective, my job is to create an environment where innovation can happen. I think the strongest innovation for a product – in creating value for your users – is through building a perfect organisation.

That’s what I’m trying to do; building a perfect organisation where creativity can thrive and you can execute on it and create great products.

Trivago has been growing into a bigger company recently. What is your strategy to make sure that your company is stable?

Schrömgens: Trivago is an agile company. We work hard to keep this alive by using agile concepts, even with a thousand hundred people. We believe in trying and believing in an evolutionary process more than a strategic one.

For that, you’d have to put a lot of things together like the culture, the kind of organisation you created, and the motivations of the organisation. It’s a tough thing to do and it gets tougher the bigger your organisation grows. You have to be radical in your approaches if you still want to be able to innovate in high pacing. You need to exclude all ego from your organisation and make sure that your people are not extrinsically motivated but intrinsically strong and motivated. You also have to find the right setting in place.

Also Read: How to get the most out of agile development

Back then, we followed the traditional leadership model where you have one leader in a team but that didn’t work for us anymore. We changed it to have more or less three leaders per team. It may be hard to do this in an organisation where there are a thousand hundred people but I think it worked in Trivago because we fostered a culture where this is accepted.

Our culture isn’t about status or titles; it’s about driving the company forward towards creating a great product. This culture took about many years to cultivate in our company.

You’ve been talking a lot about managing organisation and people. Trivago as a tech product and Trivago as a company, which one do you focus on more?

Schrömgens: It depends on the stage of the company. When we started, I coded the first version of Trivago myself and there was a lot of focus on the end-product. We stayed there for a while but when you start having a thousand people in your organisation, you have to pull the creativity out of those people. You can’t just pull the creativity out from yourself – that would be very inefficient.

So, eventually, your scope has to change from focusing on the product to creating a good product through creating a good organisation. That’s where I invest my time now.

My time investment has changed drastically from being the one creating the product to guiding people to create the product, to deliver ideas to the product, and to the delivery of ideas for changing the organisation. Communication is also very important in this process.

When you entered this industry, there were a lot of naysayers. How did you react to them?

Schrömgens: For me, it’s a question of how you expose yourself to these noises. We all have a tendency to be insecure and get confirmation from others that’s why we talk to a lot of people.

But I think, sometimes, you just have to say no and focus on your product, your customers, and your users. That’s the most important thing. It’s not about your competition in the industry.

Also Read: 8 proven tips for successfully scaling an e-commerce business

You’ve experienced dealing with investors for your company. What is the one you’ve learned out of that experience? What advice would you give to those who are also looking for investors for their company?

Schrömgens: I think that it’s not healthy for investors to lead the company. I think they should be hands-off. I’ve also been an investor myself and I would rather that investors not interfere with the day-to-day operations of the company and instead, look at their long-term performance.

You don’t have to put a show for your investors; just focus on your product and make sure that it solves the problem of your users.

What is your advice to those who are launching their first startups?

Schrömgens: If you want your product to have great value in the future, you need to focus on one thing. Especially when you have a lot of competition in a specific industry, you need to find your niche and find a vertical where you can deliver a great product value. Just work with one problem and try to deliver a great solution for it.

Each week, Billy Yuen talks with top entrepreneurs, investors and executives about startups, hiring and building awesome teams. This interview has been edited for space and clarity.

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The Southeast Asian region (SEA) can pride itself in being one of the most promising markets for technology in the world.

To start, the region is home to over 650 million people or 8.5 per cent of the world’s population. A digital wave is also sweeping SEA led by tech-savvy millennials. Internet connectivity and mobile phone use are rapidly increasing.

In 2019, SEA saw a double-digit growth in internet penetration, mobile connectivity, and social media penetration. It now has over 400 million internet users.

Local tech startups have taken advantage of this. SEA is home to 10 unicorns including ride-hailing platform Grab, online marketplace Lazada, and digital content and entertainment company VNG. The region’s internet economy is predicted to hit US$300 billion in 2025.

However, one crucial aspect that must not be overlooked in all this growth is digital accessibility. The rapid digital adoption in the region is steadily prompting people to shift their daily activities online.

Elsewhere in the world, accessibility has become quite the hot topic. Laws such as the US’ Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and the European Accessibility Act provide for equal access to people with disabilities.

Just last year, pizza chain Domino’s lost a case filed by a blind man claiming that Domino’s website was not accessible to visually impaired users. The ruling affirmed that accessibility laws cover digital channels.

More parties are filing similar claims and suits prompting businesses to bring their websites and applications up to standards. And now, Radioshack was recent sued.

Also Read: These 8 Southeast Asian startups work with people with disabilities to build a more inclusive society

The W3C’s Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) is currently in revision 2.1 and promotes support for a variety of disabilities including visual, auditory, motor, and cognitive impairments. Companies are striving to achieve compliance with these standards.

Since then, businesses started looking for ways to improve their site’s accessibility.

Even solutions providers are actively looking to advance digital accessibility. Recently, leading web design publication Web Designer Depot reviewed AccessiBe, an accessibility software that leverages AI to make websites compliant with the WCAG and usable to people with disabilities. The company recently secured a US$12 million round led by private equity K1.

Searches for the ADA and the WCAG rose by more than 400 per cent after the Domino’s case was validated. But while demand for digital accessibility is increasing elsewhere in the world, things appear to be progressing slower on the SEA front.

As of this writing, popular e-commerce marketplaces in the region such as Lazada and Shopee still have accessibility issues if check using web accessibility evaluation tools. This likely means that users with disabilities who try to access these platforms may not be able to enjoy the convenience that these platforms offer.

There are already accessibility laws and efforts being put in place but there still remains a gap in implementation.

In the Philippines, for example, the Department of Information and Communications and Technology (DICT) is working with the National Council on Disability Affairs and the Philippine Web Accessibility Group (PWAG) to push websites to adhere to the standards of the WCAG.

Yet, in 2019, no Philippine government website hosted by the Government Web Hosting Service achieved web accessibility compliance despite adopting the WCAG in 2017.

There are positive developments. All countries in the region are signatories to the United Nation’s Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. Collaboration across various advocacy groups in the region are ongoing.

Also Read: Digital transformation is now real: How COVID-19 has sparked innovation in tech companies

In the Philippines, advocacy groups successfully compelled news programs to include sign language interpretation as part of their broadcasts covering the coronavirus pandemic as it is mandated by law in the country. Filipino Sign Language courses are now also available online.

SEA tech startups are also starting to target the disabled for their products and services. Kerjabilitas and Difalink in Indonesia provide accessible job search and recruitment platforms. Singapore’s Embodied Sensing manufactures assistive devices like Knoctify a sensor that lights up or vibrates to notify deaf people when someone knocks on their door.

Still, efforts to improve web accessibility have to intensify. The rapid growth in internet use in Southeast Asia proves how technology can offer services and bring convenience to the public. No one, especially people with disabilities, must be left behind. It’s high time that SEA stakeholders put pressure on site-owners and businesses to finally do the right thing.

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On Singles’ Day (November 11) last year, Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba banked a whopping US$38.4 billion (EUR32.2 billion) in sales, shattering its 2018 record in the process.

The year-on-year growth of the world’s largest shopping event was impressive but noticeably slower — a trend that analysts attributed to China’s weakening economy, and its trade war with the US.

The shopping festival is in the spotlight again this year. Despite dampened global economic sentiment and a drop in consumer spending due to COVID-19, there are silver linings.

According to a survey on Asian consumer behaviour by global measurement and data analytics agency Nielsen, the pandemic has not only increased online shopping spends , but also converted many offline shoppers to online.

During the pandemic, our global logistics network has already seen shipment volumes surpass that of our traditional peak season between November to February, which coincides with the Lunar New Year holidays.

We have also observed how traditional businesses without a digital presence have taken the opportunity to venture into e-commerce, and how retailers are doubling down on e-commerce to recoup losses from the COVID-19 fallout. Meanwhile, e-commerce marketplaces and sellers are running on all cylinders to fight for a slice of the online market.

The peak is still to come as we anticipate a 40 per cent surge in daily volume passing through our network during Singles’ Day and the year-end holiday season, even before considering the effects of COVID-19 on e-commerce.

Also Read: Asia’s food delivery potential is set to unlock post-COVID-19. Here’s why

While we pull out all the stops to keep goods moving, businesses too need to start preparing early for this 24-hour shopping extravaganza and the year-end peak season. Here’s how yours can go about doing so amid the pandemic:

Forecast demand

Looking at data collected in recent years can indicate specific peak periods for the demand that your business is likely to face.

With COVID-19, the situation could be different, but mapping this out in advance will give you ample time to implement measures to plug the gaps that may arise when demand soars.

In the case of Singles’ Day, this could include securing additional manpower to cope with the peak season volume and training them ahead of time to ensure familiarity with the processes.

Referencing past data could also guide businesses in determining their inventory levels and identifying supplier alternatives — by geographies or product types, for instance — in the event of overwhelming demand.

Clear shipping policies

The unexpected shipping charge that only appears at checkout could turn customers away from the business. An e-commerce survey by audience measurement company Comscore revealed that up to 55 per cent of shoppers would abandon their carts if they are suddenly hit with hidden charges that were not clearly communicated.

You can avoid such instances with a well-defined shipping policy that sets clear expectations with customers, ensuring a seamless purchasing experience.

Shipping charges, duties, or any other surcharges should be transparent and outlined, preferably in a prominent spot or pop-up window on the website.

Also Read: 5 reasons to be bullish on logistics tech in Asia

Any restrictions related to shipping to certain countries, or special handling involved, should also be specified to avoid confusion.

On-demand shipping

During the pandemic, changes in movement restrictions mean consumers might be alternating between working from the office and working from home.

To better cater to your customers, flexible alternatives must be offered to them to ensure they are available to receive their orders at a time and place of their convenience. By leaving the decision with them, the fulfilment of last-mile delivery will likely improve as the instances of failed deliveries will be lowered.

Empowering your customers to customise their deliveries, in turn, raises their satisfaction with your business for offering such convenience, and may even encourage repeat purchases.

End-to-end shipping visibility

Supply chain experts have cited shipment visibility as one of the key attributes consumers look for during the busy holiday season.

Given the additional rules and changing regulations due to the pandemic, holiday shipping across borders may be impacted, making shipment visibility all the more important.

The ability to track a shipment online and knowing if it would arrive on the scheduled delivery date is essential to keeping your customers satisfied.

Enabling the capability as a self-help function further reduces the number of inquiries and, in turn, minimises extra costs for customer support.

Also Read: Singapore tech entrepreneurs raise funds to help Indonesian daily wage workers during COVID-19

Your business also stands to gain by addressing issues promptly, with a bird’s eye view of the order fulfilment process with the tracking function, thus improving service delivery standards.

Contactless delivery

The safety of customers should be prioritised especially in the thick of the COVID-19 pandemic.

To reduce the risk of transmission, contactless delivery should be made a default option to protect the health and safety of your customers and the delivery personnel.

The standard practice of the consignee signing on the courier’s scanner to acknowledge receipt of the shipment should be temporarily shelved.

This can be simply replaced by a release option that allows the courier to leave the parcel at an agreed-upon area for the consignee’s collection without a signature.

If possible, this arrangement should be communicated to your customers early so they are aware of what to expect when their parcels arrive.

Be ready for returns

It would be best if you also remembered to prepare for the influx of returns generated by online shopping once Singles’ Day and the holiday shopping season comes to an end. That is when shoppers will return most of their unwanted gifts or clothes.

Providing a smooth returns experience is the priority as it serves as another opportunity for your business to engage the customer. You can make it easier by adding a return label with every delivered shipment, making it less of a hassle for the customer.

Managing returns has proven costly for large retailers and small businesses alike. Given the peak shopping season, extending the returns period may be another alternative to avoid stressing resources. What matters most is that businesses think through this in advance before the season officially begins.

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Hello community

This week was full of exciting conversations in our contributor community. While DHL Express MD reminded startups on the upcoming logistics challenges as holiday season approaches, an academic from the University of Michigan shares his psychology secrets for a remote work life.

From the emerging economies world, the CEO of a Burmese fintech startup opened our minds to the massive potential in Myanmar’s digital payment scene and marketing guru at iPrice highlighted Vietnam’s rising mobile commerce.

Raking in the moolah

Why Trivago co-founder thinks having lots of money as a startup is a challenge by StackTrek founder Billy Yuen:

“For Trivago, we only did two small financing ground at the beginning. We never did that again but it has helped us grow the company out of the cash flow. This helped us maintain our culture and sustain our internal organisation.”

How understanding culture can drive digitalisation of payments in Myanmar by CEO of fintech startup NearMe, Lynn Htaik Aung

“Nonetheless, the time seems ripe for Myanmar to take the leap. Infrastructure is in place and expanding – Myanmar’s mobile phone connectivity is over 95 per cent and almost three-quarters of Myanmar’s working population owns a mobile phone.

The COVID-19 pandemic has also compelled the Myanmar government to show strong support for digital payments as it reduces physical contact between people.”

Shop till you drop

How e-tailers should prepare for Singles’ Day amidst COVID-19 by Yasmin Khan, Commercial Head of Asia Pacific and the MD of 10 Emerging Markets in DHL Express

“We have also observed how traditional businesses without a digital presence have taken the opportunity to venture into e-commerce, and how retailers are doubling down on e-commerce to recoup losses from the COVID-19 fallout. Meanwhile, e-commerce marketplaces and sellers are running on all cylinders to fight for a slice of the online market.

The peak is still to come as we anticipate a 40 per cent surge in daily volume passing through our network during Singles’ Day and the year-end holiday season, even before considering the effects of COVID-19 on e-commerce.”

The cheapest e-commerce platform in Singapore –and what it means for competition landscape by Duckju (DJ) Kang, CEO of ValueChampion:

“While brick-and-mortar stores have their benefits, online shopping comes with its own perks of cheaper prices due to lower operational costs and overhead. However, do all e-commerce sites provide the same great deals to their customers?

To find out, we explored how four of Singapore’s largest e-commerce platforms compare on price across 73 everyday products.”

Vietnam’s mobile commerce is set to open up avenues for startups by Đặng Đăng Trường from iPrice Group:

“The sudden arrival of COVID-19 in early 2020 became of definitive turning point for Vietnam’s e-commerce to accelerate the process. With more people staying at home, and with the increasing demand for online entertainment, Q2 became the ideal condition for e-commerce startups to apply the features they have been testing.”

The post COVID-19 life

Are your influence skills ready for remote work? by Maxim Sytch from B-school professor at University of Michigan:

“By some accounts, 61 per cent of the global workforce is now remote. And, while it is unclear whether and by how much this number may change in the next few years, it is clear that remote work is here to stay in a significant capacity.

What does this mean for you and your influence skills? Modern organisations feature flatter hierarchies, matrix structures, and cross-functional workflows, with great degrees of involvement from external stakeholders, such as alliance partners, suppliers, investors, and even rivals.”

What this digital shift means for people with disabilities in SEA by fintech enthusiast and our regular contributor, Kay Banzon:

“SEA is home to 10 unicorns including ride-hailing platform Grab, online marketplace Lazada, and digital content and entertainment company VNG.

However, one crucial aspect that must not be overlooked in all this growth is digital accessibility. The rapid digital adoption in the region is steadily prompting people to shift their daily activities online.

Elsewhere in the world, accessibility has become quite the hot topic. Laws such as the US’ Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and the European Accessibility Act provide for equal access to people with disabilities.”

How edutech startups can accelerate active learning by our regular contributor Ong Kai Kiat

“The key challenge of digital education would be to engage and gain the attention of the students. Even during Zoom education, the students can be passively looking past the Zoom screen to a Netflix film on the television screen behind them as they put themselves on mute.”

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