I have served on the Boards or as a senior executive in companies that have created billions of dollars of value for their investors, so I am often asked where the next big opportunity lies. Apart from proptech, I see a significant opportunity in human resources technology. By the time you finish this article, I hope you will understand this “peopletech” trend and how to benefit from it.

Few employees are 100 per cent happy

There is clearly room for improvement in how companies hire, manage, and develop their employees. Very few people in the workforce have not at some point felt abused, misused, or simply overlooked. 

I’ll give you an example from my career. 

Not long after I graduated from business school, I was excited to land a role with a large financial institution in Germany. I was hired to be Head of Strategy for a business unit. 

But after signing and before starting, the organisation got confused, changed its mind, spent time debating my title, and in other ways wasted an entire month after I had officially begun before finally giving me a job to do. 

I earned no salary during that month. Worse, the uncertainty and the callousness with which I was treated made that experience one of the worst I have gone through in my professional career.

A huge opportunity

Perhaps technology cannot fully make up for human incompetence or indifference. Still, good HR technology can have a powerful effect on organisations that want to get the most from their teams.

Also Read: “We want to facilitate organisations’ Web3 transition from bits to atoms”: Brinc CEO Manav Gupta

To understand the scope of the opportunity that human resources technology businesses are addressing, let’s compare it to proptech, which we already know is huge.

Let me give you three data points:

• Consider that today an estimated 3.2 billion people are employed somewhere globally, and there are 2.3 billion properties. So, there are about 40-50 per cent more jobs than properties.
• Properties on average turn over every 10 to 20 years, depending on the country. Meanwhile, research from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics suggests that people change jobs every four years on average, a number that is consistent for many countries in the world. So jobs turn over 2.5 times to 5 times more frequently than properties.
• The value of both jobs and properties vary significantly by country. So, let’s look at the U.S. again. There, the average property is worth US$435k and the average job (over four years) is worth a smaller US$285k.

In sum, the opportunity for HR technology entrepreneurs is enormous. These statistics make it clear why the global human resource technology market is projected to grow to a total of US$36 billion by 2028, according to a report from Fortune Business Insights. That’s more than triple its 2018 size.

The best team usually wins

Perhaps most importantly of all, human resources technology is vital because, after all, it is dedicated to helping actual human beings achieve their potential. 

Individual human beings win Nobel prizes, sell products, brainstorm solutions, drive growth, care for their teammates, coach less experienced colleagues, and ensure your company‘s success.

In businesses, as in sports, the best team usually wins. 

I certainly would have loved to have best of breed HR tech during the five corporate takeovers I have gone through. Hundreds of millions of dollars can be at play, but mergers and acquisitions are often stalled or even thwarted due to missing paperwork. 

An always updated organisational chart is a key item on every checklist for due diligence data rooms. (Data rooms are the repositories of confidential information that potential takeover targets must prepare so their acquirers can do their pre-transaction research.)

Who works for whom and does what? That seems like an easy enough question. But I can tell you from experience that many companies cannot produce a live, detailed, and accurate org chart on demand.

Also Read: Why leaders matter for a strong organisational culture

I have seen first-hand how insufficient are the tools that traditionally have been available to most HR teams. And it is worse in smaller companies and startups. There, limited resources and fast growth can make human resources even more difficult.

All these realisations motivated my decision to invest in BrioHR.com. I believe this Malaysian based company has the potential to help companies and employees optimise their human resources across the amazing growth region of Southeast Asia and beyond. BrioHR’s solution also generates up-to-date org charts on demand.

In sum, there is a bright future ahead for players who provide end-to-end systems for empowering and managing people, systems, and platforms. There is a crying need for the facilitation of every stage of the employee-employer relationship, including recruiting, onboarding, employing, retaining, and developing team members. And companies like BrioHR are rising to the challenge.

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Recently, in their latest edition of the Global State of Crypto Report, crypto exchange Gemini dubbed 2021 as the “breakout year” for crypto in Singapore as the market saw a mass adoption of the digital currency in the same year. Despite scepticism here and there, it revealed that more than two in five crypto owners in Singapore first started investing in crypto last year.

The report revealed many exciting statistics. For example, · more than two in five crypto owners in the country (42 per cent) turn to crypto for its inflation hedging properties –even with its stable fiat currency.

Another finding that stresses the promising future for crypto in Singapore is that 82 per cent of crypto investors intend to hold to their investments for the long term with 26 per cent believing crypto is the future of money.

In Southeast Asia, Singapore was not the only country that has begun to jump into crypto recently. In an email interview with e27, Feroze Medora, interim Managing Director and Director of Trading at Gemini APAC, described a similar situation in Indonesia.

“Amongst non-crypto owners in these countries, 42 per cent of Singapore respondents and 45 per cent of Indonesia respondents labelled themselves as crypto-curious. This means that these respondents are consumers who, while not currently owning crypto, are either interested in learning more or are likely to acquire cryptocurrency in the next year,” he explains.

Also Read: Demystifying NFTs and DeFi

“These encouraging results contribute to a very positive outlook for the asset class in the region,” Medora stresses.

To understand more about the state of crypto adoption in Singapore and Southeast Asia, check out the edited excerpt of the interview with him.

What are the factors that encourage the rapid growth of crypto in these markets?

Crypto has evolved from being the wild wild west to an established asset class, resulting in a shift in general public perception. With the market cap for crypto hitting almost US$3 trillion last year, the majority of investors surveyed from Asia Pacific saw crypto as a long-term investment.

Additionally, according to the report findings, countries with a history of currency devaluation also saw crypto as a hedge against inflation.

Countries such as Singapore have seen local regulators express a willingness to deliberate over-regulation and provide greater clarity for the cryptocurrency sector. This relative openness to cryptocurrency has resulted in a higher rate of adoption for such markets as opposed to countries whose regulators are closed off to the industry.

Also Read: Cryptocurrency is a notoriously volatile field. Is it possible to generate a stable income?

What role does inflation play in encouraging people to embrace crypto?

Investors in countries that experience currency depreciation may look to crypto, particularly bitcoin, as an inflation hedge. Many believe that bitcoin is ‘digital gold’ given its finite supply of 21 million bitcoin. Fiat currencies are not viewed the same way given their ability to increase supply.

Should the value of bitcoin, or any other chosen crypto, increase with time, this will protect against the decreased purchasing power of a currency that results from the loss of its value. Through this method, crypto provides an alternative avenue to preserve savings.

More than half of non-crypto owning respondents in Singapore cited that the major barrier to crypto adoption was the fear of losing money. What are the other barriers for users to embrace this technology?

The biggest barriers, according to the report findings, are the lack of education non-crypto owners have on the asset class, the fear of crypto’s volatile market – which these potential investors believe would lead to them losing their funds- as well as security concerns.

The good news is that there is no lack of educational crypto materials available online, including sites such as Cryptopedia. It is also on industry players to provide an environment that welcomes new investors, and not cater solely to crypto market veterans. Crypto was created to be accessible to everyone, regardless of education level and even gender.

In terms of volatile price movements, it is vital for all potential crypto owners to do their own research before investing in a token, instead of developing FOMO and jumping on the crypto bandwagon. Additionally, research should include ensuring that they use a trustworthy exchange to conduct their trades.

How deep should government involvement be?

As key stakeholders, governments help to lay down important foundations by providing regulatory oversight in the crypto industry. Two-way engagements with the crypto community at large will be key in developing thoughtful and effective regulations.

Ultimately, when regulations are done right, they can pave the way to healthy and sustainable markets, and help unlock the potential of crypto to a wider audience.

Also Read: Axie Infinity hack reminds us about the vulnerabilities in crypto markets: Advance.AI’s Ravi Madavaram

What are the things that crypto companies need to keep in mind when promoting this technology?

As crypto companies look to accelerate the transition to cryptocurrency, the priority should be to implement proper KYC/AML measures for maximal investor protection and security.

To build trust, crypto companies would need to develop and implement solutions and a robust infrastructure that provides a safer and more secure experience for their customers.

Two in five crypto owners (40 per cent) in Singapore are women, a higher adoption rate than a number of western nations, including the US (32 per cent) and the UK (35 per cent). The report also stated that the gender gap in crypto is narrowing. Would you be able to explain why this is the case? What can we do to further promote this?

This report has challenged the belief that cryptocurrency is a ‘boys’ club’ – especially in Indonesia where more women than men own crypto.

In this day and age, more people are technologically savvy – especially with mobile phone usage. The prevalence of crypto mobile apps has made crypto even more accessible to everyone – regardless of gender.

By increasing the amount of reputable crypto educational materials, and ensuring their availability to the general public, will help to continue providing an even playing field for all.

What are the opportunities that crypto platforms in SEA should embrace?

As mentioned earlier, a big barrier to crypto adoption is the lack of education. While many already do, more crypto firms in the region need to step up as educators of the space.

Crypto platforms have the opportunity to contribute to the pool of educational resources to help the crypto curious make better-informed investment decisions. This, in turn, will encourage crypto adoption even further and help to elevate cryptocurrency as a legitimate asset class.

What is next for crypto in SEA?

The world is no stranger to the rise of NFTs in the past year or so. NFTs have introduced more of the general population to the potential of Web 3, and with that has come the hot topic of the Metaverse. We can expect even more conversations around the Metaverse this year and a continued rise in popularity of NFTs – particularly more use-cases of this new technology.

Also Read: How to find a good investment with new crypto tokens

It would not be surprising to see crypto exchanges experience growth alongside the popularity of NFTs and the Metaverse this year as well. Crypto exchanges have long operated as the gateway into the digital economy, and as mainstream adoption continues to rise, more people will need the access that only crypto exchanges can grant.

We can expect to see more institutions entering the space as the industry continues to develop and grow even further.

Currently, regulators around the world are continuing to pay attention to crypto. It is our hope that within the next 12 months, we will start to see thoughtful regulations that benefit the industry as well as the investors.

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The tech industry boomed during the COVID-19 pandemic, extending a multi-decade bull run. Private companies received vast cash injections from investors. In 2021, tech startups raised US$628 billion, double the previous year. Giants like Apple and Tesla also enjoyed record-breaking market caps.

Yet, the tech industry has been off to a bumpy start in 2022. In the first three months of 2022, global funding has fallen 19 per cent to US$144 billion from last quarter. This is the largest quarter-over-quarter percentage decline in nearly a decade. Apple, Microsoft, Google, Amazon, Meta and Netflix have collectively lost US$1.3 trillion of market value this year.

Over the past few weeks, we’ve also witnessed many layoffs. Unicorns like Cameo and Hopin have laid off a significant percentage of their staff. We’ve also seen the same with public companies like Robinhood and Peloton. Some others like Meta, Uber and DoorDash have frozen or slowed hiring for the rest of the year.

Group CEO of Advanced Medtech, Abel Ang, describes this situation to be “the current capital market winter for startups”.

I’ve built a career in the software-as-a-service industry over the past seven years. Other aspects of my life are affected by the startups I work with, my investments in publicly listed tech companies and the livelihood and careers of the people I care about.

If you are as invested as I am in your personal and professional lives, it pays to understand what is happening to prepare for this winter.

Why is all this happening?

Rising inflation, a stalled IPO market and instability sparked by Russia’s war in Ukraine have caused investors in public and private markets to be more cautious.

“Investor sentiment in Silicon Valley is the most negative since the dot-com crash,” explains David Sacks, Founder of Craft Ventures.

The implications? It is harder and takes longer for companies to raise funds.

Also Read: How Third Derivative assesses the impact of a potential climate tech investment

Deal sizes are getting smaller. Pitchbook has found that average VC pre-valuations in the late-stage dropped by 20 per cent from US$731.6 million in 2021 to US$572 million in the first quarter of 2022.

VCs are also taking much longer to make decisions about new investments. The average closure time for a late-stage deal has moved to about six months.

“While really good companies will still get money, it will be five times tougher to raise at a certain price. This is also why investors are telling their startups that unless you are okay with a down round, start conserving cash,” explains Ashwin Damera, cofounder and chief executive of edutech firm Eruditus, which raised US$650 million in August last year at US$3.2 billion valuations.

To cope with these new realities, startups are cutting down on spending, conserving cash and being pressured by investors to show a clear path to profitability.

How can we respond to all these trends?

Companies need to find ways to make their existing cash piles last longer

This is especially so for companies who are overvalued, burning through investor cash and struggling to raise the next round.

“It’s important to extend your runway if you have less than a year of it. You might wanna take this opportunity to impose a bit of financial discipline and see where you can cut waste,” said Co-Founder and President at Every, Nathan Baschez.

There are many levers startups have to extend their cash runway.

One of the ways companies can do this is by optimising and reducing their cloud infrastructure costs which can often be both unpredictable and spin out of control.

This is what DoorDash is trying to improve margins. Currently, DoorDash calculates it pays Amazon Web Services 6.5 per cent to process each order. The company is hoping to get that down to under six per cent by the end of the first half of this year.

In doing so, companies can potentially benefit from building a better business.

“It’s counterintuitive but raising less money will often lead to building a better business. It forces you to have constraints, which leads to more focus and higher quality decisions, which results in better products and more sustainable business models,” explains the CEO of Box, Aaron Levie.

Tech workers should do their due diligence on the companies they work for or want to move into

Companies that have a multi-year runway of capital will likely keep hiring according to their original plans. They will keep growing much more than others, both in stock price, as well as in headcount. Their employees could experience no threats from layoffs, faster growth, and better financial outcomes.

In contrast, companies making a loss, and dependant on new funding to operate are the ones most at risk of having to execute layoffs.

Also Read: How the global growth of fintech defies age and gender

“Companies that have frozen, or are slowing hiring, are especially ones to look out for,” warns the author of The Pragmatic Engineer, Gergely Orosz.

“I predict we will see layoffs at late-stage startups struggling to raise more funding without presenting a plan to investors that include laying off parts of their workforce. So we’ll see more reporting where a company raises funding, but cuts a large part of its team shortly after: just like how beauty startup Glossier raised $80M in July 2021 but laid off a third of its workforce in January 2022,” he explains.

Others at risk include companies that have overhired or overestimated post-pandemic demand. This was the case with Robinhood. As their CEO, Vlad Tenev explains, “Like any company, with growth like that comes more job openings to manage that growth, which then ended up with some roles and job functions that were duplicated.”

As an employee, it is sometimes difficult to tell the state of your company. First of all, your company’s management may try to make things sound good. Hence, relying solely on what your C suite says may not be a reliable indicator.

A good example of this will be the case of the former CEO of Peloton, John Foley. He still sounded positive at each of the quarterly earnings before the layoffs. Yet, the business metrics told a different story.

Looking at perks given or recent funding raised is not a good indicator. B2B financial-services startup MainStreet flew the entire company out for a week-long working vacation in Maui just a few months ago and stayed at the luxurious Grand Wailea Hotel.

Yet, the funding that materialised was smaller than originally planned, and the company had to cut 30 per cent of its workforce. Hence, it is important for tech workers to also take a deeper look and do their due diligence.

For those working in publicly listed companies, you can find this data in the quarterly earnings reports. It might be worth asking some of these questions during town halls for those in private companies.

Also Read: 6 fintech startups you should keep an eye out for

How much cash do they have on their balance sheet? How many months can the business keep operating before it’s out of money? What is the burn rate? How much money is the company spending every month?

Tech workers should double down on building their skills

The most important thing you can do during inflation to protect yourself is to sharpen your skills, according to Warren Buffett. Speaking at the 2022 Berkshire Hathaway annual shareholders meeting, he shared that skills, unlike the currency, are inflation-proof.

If you have a skill that is in demand, it will remain in demand no matter what the dollar is worth.

“Whatever abilities you have can’t be taken away from you. They can’t be inflated away from you. By far, the best investment is anything that develops yourself, and it’s not taxed at all,” he said. This is similar to his advice in the 2008 financial crisis, where he shared that “the best thing to do is invest in yourself.”

Final thoughts

2022 is already looking to be very different in both tech market dynamics. Tech workers need to be aware that things might look different this year than in other years over the past decade.

Hence, it is critical to stay on top of these trends that impact us to plan our next steps and not be caught off-guard. Ultimately, we cannot control many things in this world, but we can control how we respond.

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Editor’s note: e27 aims to foster thought leadership by publishing views from the community. Share your opinion by submitting an article, video, podcast, or infographic

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

Image credit: Canva Pro

The post Winter for tech startups is here? Here’s how to deal with it appeared first on e27.

In this episode, we are excited to welcome Heini Zachariassen, Founder and Former CEO of Vivino, the world’s largest wine app. Prior, Zachariassen was the CEO of BullGuard and a board member of NORRIQ and Faroese Telecom. He is also the founder and host of Raw Startup.

In our conversation, Zachariassen talks about a number of topics including the importance of hiring a strong team and how the roles and expertise of the team need to change as an organisation grows in new markets, building a decentralised organization, the tradeoffs of localisation in markets and when to make changes to your business model and when not to, the future of global business, as well as the benefits of coming from a small country.

Also Read: Winery.ph raises funding to get Filipino consumers quality wines sourced directly from wineries in US, Australia

This episode is sponsored by our partner, ZEDRA. Learn more about how the ZEDRA team can support you in expanding to new markets here.

Find our entire podcast episode library here and learn more about our forthcoming book on global business growth here.

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This article was first published by Global Class.

Image Credit: Global Class

The post Founder of world’s largest wine app reveals key to building a strong global team appeared first on e27.

APAC CIO Outlook, one of the most influential magazines in the region recently named oVice one of the top 10 remote work solutions. Created by Sae Hyung Jung, the virtual office company helps connect remote teams in a customisable digital space.

The key idea behind oVice is to remove the frustration and fatigue that both managers and employees face using other collaboration and video conferencing platforms.

There is no need to schedule calls and video conferences anymore. With oVice, it is enough to move your 2D avatar close to a teammate and start talking. Also, oVice allows teammates to quickly switch between meetings, share screens simultaneously, and work in groups.

Last but not least, the company adds gamification to remote work by turning offices into creative and playful digital spaces — an island, a garden, even outer space.

To understand how the idea of oVice was born, what challenges the development team had to consider, and what the future of the platform is like, one has to dive into the mind of its founder and the man on the cover of the latest issue of APAC CIO Outlook — Sae Hyung Jung.

Key to success: readiness to act

Sae Hyung Jung, the founder of oVice, represents what you call a “serial entrepreneur”. He was in business since he turned 18.

Sae Hyung Jung started a variety of different companies from a trade brokerage firm to deep learning and AI startups, but all of them were united by a common vision: the ability to pinpoint and solve problems faster and better than others.

The CEO of oVice sees technology as a way to drive progress and connect people who otherwise would struggle to keep in touch. His fascination with robotics and AI has led him down the engineering path and he committed to building products that make life more productive and fun.

oVice: a creative solution to a new problem

With oVice, Sae Hyung Jung was also solving a problem — this time, the one he himself was facing. Before the COVID-19 outbreak, the founder of what would become one of the leading virtual office startups in the APAC region took a business trip to Tunisia.

Little did he know he would struggle to come back to Japan, as border closures and travel restrictions took over the world.

All of a sudden, Sae Hyung Jung was cut off from the rest of the team, unable to meet his colleagues and work in person. Since the entire world was going remote, oVice founder decided to try traditional collaboration and video conferencing tools.

Also read: 5G tech? All eyes on Taiwan

After a while, he and the team found themselves missing the spontaneity and fluidity of office-based interactions.

“Originally, I like working offline. Before the pandemic, I worked in an open office, and conversations would naturally reach my ears. I was able to hear how teams are working on projects and quickly spot signs of trouble. However, I was forced to do telework and felt uncomfortable that I couldn’t communicate as usual using existing online tools”.

Sae Hyung Jung realised that, while online communication tools allow teams to stay in touch, there’s no “space” where people can interact, connect, and brainstorm the way they did before.

That’s how the idea of oVice, a tool that encourages spontaneous interactions and makes “management by wondering” possible, was born.

Building a groundbreaking product in a month

Creating a virtual office tool that would be lightweight and resource-efficient but immersive and fully functional at the same time was a new challenge.

There were a few examples of products that successfully incorporated physical laws and created a seamless socialisation environment without requiring VR sets and powerful computers. Sae Hyung Jung and the team had to do a lot of research and test their theories through trial and error.

Driven by passion and vision, the CEO of oVice didn’t take much time to bring the product to life. He built the prototype in just a month and released the product with expanded functionality in 2020, after using it with the team.

Explosive response and adoption

In just a few weeks after its release, oVice was discovered by over 100 companies, among which are major market players. Managers and team leaders were excited about the product that made transitioning to remote work less painful and felt like “an office in the digital world”.

Team leaders were using oVice in different ways: while some relied on the platform to run meetings, host team building events, and industry conferences, others didn’t even talk. Instead, they used the platform to “feel charged by each other’s presence”.

Also read: Three leading B2B digital disruptors win 2021 Fast Forward with HPE

At the moment, the company is less than 2 years old but it boasts an impressive list of clients. oVice has grown into a global company represented in Japan, South Korea, the US, Vietnam, and other countries.

The company supports over 20,000 businesses with virtual spaces and has raised over $18 million in investment. It has over 150 employees who work remotely in the company’s virtual space.

Vision for oVice: hybrid work

At the time of writing, most countries are conceptualising the return to normal and closing the curtain on the COVID-19 pandemic. Recently, South Korea has announced it would be lifting quarantine restrictions and the same is true in other APAC countries.

At the same time, studies show that employees like working remotely and aren’t ready to work at offices 9 to 5, five days a week. That’s why hybrid work — a model that allows teammates to choose where they work — is becoming widespread worldwide.

From the tech point of view, there are few tools that help offices and remote teams connect seamlessly.

Also read: In the age of e-commerce, complete and accurate data analytics is key

Traditional collaboration platforms create a divide between in-house and work-from-home employees. Teammates who work remotely are often not included in meetings and tend to struggle when it comes to connecting with office-only teammates and being part of the corporate culture.

In this landscape, oVice is the platform that will help hybrid teams stay connected and equally involved in decision-making.

The company has already joined forces with RICOH, a leading imaging and electronics company in Japan, in creating a virtual office that supports real-time 360-degree video, taking immersion and connectivity in hybrid workplaces to a new level.

Sae Hyung Jung and his team don’t see oVice as a way to replace in-person communication — rather, they view it as a link that seamlessly connects remote and in-office work. The platform allows teams to connect, brainstorm, build, and have fun no matter where they are.

Get to know oVice

Together with other tools mentioned in the latest issue of APAC CIO Outlook, oVice is focused on revolutionising, streamlining, and optimising remote work.

The platform supports a wide range of use cases from office spaces to events and classrooms. It welcomes teams with a 14-day free trial, allowing them to explore the features of a virtual space, as well as round-the-clock assistance from customer support.

Find out how oVice helps remote teams collaborate and stay connected and introduce your team to an innovative approach to remote work.

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This article is produced by the e27 team, sponsored by oVice

We can share your story at e27, too. Engage the Southeast Asian tech ecosystem by bringing your story to the world. Visit us at e27.co/advertise to get started.

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