Energy consumption has been a major source of criticism in the cryptocurrency business. Ethereum has finally deployed a huge network upgrade that dramatically transforms how the blockchain validates transactions, mints new currency, and secures its network.

This mechanism, known as proof-of-stake, has cut Ethereum energy use by more than 99 per cent. This sounds good. However, Bitcoin is unlikely to follow suit.

Is Bitcoin now green? No, but at least Bitcoin’s emissions of greenhouse gases are down than before. According to the Cambridge Bitcoin Electricity Consumption Index, Bitcoin’s greenhouse gas emissions decreased from 59 metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent in October 2021 to 48.88 metric tons.

According to research released by Cambridge University’s Centre of Alternative Finance, Bitcoin is failing to go green, with the cryptocurrency recording only modest increases in its use of renewable energy in the year leading up to January.

Powerful computers connected to a worldwide network process Bitcoin transactions and “mine” new tokens in a competition to solve challenging mathematical puzzles. Policymakers, investors, and environmentalists concerned about the process’s impact on global warming criticise it for guzzling electricity and heavily relying on dirty fossil fuels like coal.

Green cryptocurrencies are those whose mining activities are powered by renewable energy sources.

Things are changing, and there are alternatives to make it “greener”

Solar

Currently, solar is said to as “the cheapest energy source.” Solar energy, which has the greatest pace of growth among all energy sources, presently provides three per cent of the world’s electricity while emitting no noise pollution and scaling up easily. Solar energy has global potential, in contrast to comparatively rare geothermal.

Also Read: Beyond buzzwords: How climate tech startups can create an impact in green recovery

According to Bloomberg, a solar power company in South Africa pays investors with cryptocurrency. Sun Exchange allows investors to spend as little as US$4 on solar cells. Although the cost is lower than what would have been charged for electricity from the grid, the customers who receive the renewable energy nevertheless pay the price for a 20-year contract.

Sun Exchange gets a portion of the revenue to pay for installation and upkeep while also turning a profit. Investors are paid the balance. They can receive South African Rands or Bitcoin, with the latter enabling simple cross-border payments to the more than 35,000 participants thus far across 180 countries.

Biomass

Five per cent of US primary consumption, 10 per cent of global energy, and 1.4 per cent of Canada’s electrical production come from biomass. Most of this energy is used for industrial heating and other activities, which have considerable environmental benefits that include enhancing hygiene by reusing waste and lowering greenhouse gas emissions.

Utilising biodegradable materials as fuel for energy production is not out of place in the race for a sustainable Bitcoin mining business. When compared to solar, it might not offer a more significant arbitrage, but buying these energy choices from a position of strength remains the ideal.

Bitcoin Magazine reported that a Dallas, Texas-based hemp processor, Generation Hemp, sees more peer-to-peer in the future for cannabis than just passing around a pre-roll. They have unveiled plans to mine for cryptocurrency using cannabis as fuel.

Hydro

Compared to other renewable energy sources, hydropower has the best energy extraction (conversion) efficiency (up to 90 per cent), is the most dependable, and has the smallest carbon footprint.

Borgo d’Anaunia is a small municipality in the Trentino-Alto Adige area of northern Italy. The 37-year-old Daniele Graziadei became Italy’s first municipality to run a crypto data centre. Another illustration of the use of hydropower is this.

The need to be more green expands to other tokens too

VeChain is working on green initiatives to increase stakeholder involvement, such as the one agreed with the government of San Marino, or to deliver the future of safe and traceable food. According to the project’s current estimating models, VeChain generates 4.58 metric tons of carbon emissions, which is equivalent to the emissions generated by mining a single BTC.

FRZ Solar System (FRZSS) was created to combat the energy issue using blockchain technologies and web innovations. Given that solar energy is limitless, renewable, endless, pollution-free, and inexpensive, the FRZSS intends to popularise solar power plants as the primary power source. The team has also been working with other companies to reduce the cost of electricity generation.

Tezos is a green energy crypto blockchain similar to Ethereum in that it supports smart contracts and can be used to mint NFTs. The low carbon footprint of Tezos means developers and users can prioritise innovation without compromising sustainability. They have increased energy efficiency per-transaction basis by at least 70 per cent.

Also Read: Can Bitcoin help us in the fight against climate change?

IMPT is a blockchain-based technology that allows individuals and businesses to swiftly and safely reduce their carbon footprint. Customers can earn carbon credits while buying online. They could even buy them directly from the platform. Furthermore, IMPT should tokenise carbon credits so users can purchase them as NFTs. The NFTs are then recorded into a decentralised ledger that users view to give traceability and transparency.

Back to Bitcoin

The large carbon footprint associated with Bitcoin mining appears to be at odds with any environmental objectives. The demand that limited electricity is used for the real economy and not for Bitcoin mining is justified in light of escalating energy prices and shortages.

Creating new strategies for the most efficient utilisation of resources is necessary. Bitcoin mining has the potential to hasten the global energy transition by serving as a backup energy buyer for the excess power balance.

Additionally, energy power plants constructed with the intention of mining Bitcoin can generate a higher profit than those built to sell the electricity at market rates, mainly when constructed in remote areas with easy access to renewable energy sources but no infrastructure for integrating them into the grid. Plant owners might use these revenues to fund additional clean energy initiatives that support ESG objectives and the world’s increasing demand for electricity.

But for these projects to be successful, Bitcoin generation and the associated value chains would need to be held to a very high standard of accountability and measurability.

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In this episode, we are excited to welcome Masami Takahashi. Takahashi is the President of Scrum Studio and CEO of Japan at Miles, an application that offers rewards for travelling, allowing anyone with a smartphone to earn miles and rewards whether your commute is by car, rideshare, plane, train, subway, bus, bicycle or on foot. Prior, Takahashi led expansion for WeWork & Uber, and he’s a perfect example of an Interpreneur as we have coined in our book.

In our conversation, Masami shares how to become a bridge between HQ and local teams when working on an international market (AND why it’s the job of the local team to make HQ fall in love with that local market), how to build trust and strong relationships within a distributed organisation, and how he helped scale companies such as Uber and WeWork in the Japanese market.

Also Read: Beyond the uber of X: Reimagining on-demand

Get your copy of our Wall Street Journal Bestselling Book, Global Class, a playbook on how to build a successful global business.

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.

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This content was first published by Global Class.

Image Credit: Global Class

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Sea cut 7,000 jobs over last 6 months
The reduction affected roughly 10% of the company’s total workforce; Some of the latest job cuts were for Shopee, which let go of around 100 people; Layoffs at Shopee started around June this year.

Grab revenue more than doubles YOY in Q3, deliveries hit EBITDA breakeven
The internet major logged US$382M in revenue for the quarter, surging 143% compared to the same period in 2021; It attributed the leap to strong performance from its mobility and delivery segments.

iGlobe Partners eyes new US$200M fund for deep-tech investments
Since 1999, iGlobe has closed over 100 investment deals across Asia, Europe, and the US; Its portfolio firms include Hoolah (acquired by ShopBack), Docquity, Novelship, and Tonik Bank.

KB Financial leads ADDX’s US$20M upsized pre-Series B round
It’ll use the capital to grow its wealth management platform for private banks, brokerages and family offices; ADDX allows individual investors access to private market deals that have traditionally been open only to institutional investors.

Singaporeans feel ‘betrayed’ by Temasek-backed FTX
Retail investors who put money on the exchange to save or trade are bearing the brunt of the crisis; Many of them were lured to FTX by a stamp of approval from Singapore state-owned investment firm Temasek.

Temasek marks down full FTX investment to $0
The firm said it invested US$210M in FTX International, which represents about a 1% stake; It also poured US$65M into the troubled exchange’s American business, FTX US, across two funding rounds for a roughly 1.5% stake.

SoftBank to mark FTX investment to $0
In its earnings call last week, the Japanese investment giant said it has invested US$100M in FTX; This represents roughly 0.4% of the cryptocurrency exchange’s total equity.

Korea launches probe into Terra co-founder’s fintech firm
Daniel Shin’s Chai Corporation has been raided by the Korean authorities; They are looking into the company’s launch of its Terra payment services, which may have involved using its customers’ personal data without consent.

Philippine startup enabler Archipelago Labs launches with US$10M fund
The company plans to deploy the fund in early-stage Web3 companies with sustainable business models and sound token economics; Next year, A-Labs will run the first cohort for its Archipelago Labs Accelerator Block.

To leverage Web3 technologies, Web2 companies may start by building the right culture
Web3 is all about “a change in how we are looking at our community and our audiences”, say panellists at an Echelon session; Before they can fully embrace and implement Web3, there are misconceptions to clear.

Singapore gets an NFT-gated Web3 co-working space Metacamp
It has three floors and can accommodate 20 startups with up to five team members; The NFT-gated system allows approved members to enter the Metacamp premises by holding an NFT in their crypto wallet.

Green and sustainable crypto: Is this the way forward?
Green cryptos are those whose mining activities are powered by renewable energy sources and Bitcoin’s emissions of greenhouse gases are down than before.

Blockchain promises to be as foundational and indispensable as internet
According to Amit Ghosh of R3, the wisdom, life lessons, and values you gain from taking risks and travelling shape you into the person you are, and we are the sum of our experiences.

Sumitomo Mitsui to invest US$9.2M in Vietnam’s SmartNet
SmartNet provides payment solutions in Vietnam and is focused on micro SMEs; It operates SmartPay, an e-wallet licensed by the State Bank of Vietnam.

AI-driven property portal MOGUL.sg nets US$6.5M Series A
Nech Capital led the round; MOGUL.sg’s 3D map supports searches with an immersive experience to help prospective buyers visualise the properties and their surrounding areas better.

Choco Up to invest up to US$5M in Dream Impact’s social startups
Choco Up aims to back impact startups across diversity, equity & inclusion, circular economy and human-centric education; HK-based Dream Impact connects social entrepreneurs to resources.

One-click checkout startup Beam raises US$2.5M seed funding
The investors are Sequoia Surge and Partech Partners; The payment firm plans to use the fresh funding to hire employees, acquire more merchants, and expand to other countries in Southeast Asia.

SG logistics firm Amilo comes out of stealth mode after US$2M round
The company has also made two acquisitions; It bought a majority stake in Indonesian last-mile aggregator Kahago, which has been rebranded as Amilo Indonesia; Details on the other deal were not disclosed, but the acquired company is based in Vietnam.

Betafi attracts US$1.3M funding for its unified user research platform
The investors are Together Fund, Entrepreneur First, and Titan Capital; Betafi helps product teams conduct user interviews and usability tests effortlessly to validate their ideas, designs, beta software, and websites.

Students-focused Vietnamese fintech startup Rootopia secures US$1M
The investors are Genesia Ventures, ThinkZone Venture, and BK Fund; Rootopia helps connect angel investors with parents who need funds for their children’s school fees.

‘Kampd connects professionals based on what they know rather than who they know’
Kampd CEO Amit Gupta says the social networking platform empowers creators (thought leaders and industry stalwarts) to create and amplify their content on Kampd.

Women as focus of impact investment: Does it bring more harm than good?
One panellist argues that putting women in the centre of impact investment is counterproductive to the goal of promoting gender equality.

How Zuno Carbon plans to help organisations reduce their environmental impact
Zuno provides end-to-end carbon management solutions for organisations of all sizes that provide unprecedented visibility into their supply chain emissions.

Digital transformation: It starts and ends with our people
Kickstart any digital transformation initiatives by involving your employees and helping them understand their roles, workflows, and needs.

Why offshore recruiting is rising in APAC countries
Although some things make offshore recruiting a bit of a challenge, there are many benefits to hiring outside your typical employee pool.

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Burnout takes time to develop: it creeps up on you quietly. Its hallmarks are hopelessness, cynicism, and an inability to focus.

It’s also associated with physical symptoms like heart palpitations, blood pressure problems, muscle tension, and random aches and pains. But it manifests in more insidious ways too.

You may be at risk of burnout if…

You’re irritated by the little things

When you lose the ability to enjoy your job, you also run out of patience.

Coworkers you used to like suddenly seem pushy, boring, or obnoxious. Your routine feels unbearably stale, but new projects are even more exhausting. If you have a client-facing job, it takes an inhuman effort to talk to them politely and attentively.

Plus, the irritation may spill over to your personal life. You get either snappy or robotically distant, even with people you love. You can’t handle minor inconveniences like a broken appliance. You also can’t enjoy your hobbies the way you usually do because you keep getting distracted or annoyed by some detail.

Bad habits become more tempting

Life-ruining or relatively harmless bad habits seep into your life when you’re under too much workplace stress.

Maybe you’re back to chewing your nails, or you’re drinking more coffee than usual. You spend money on stuff you don’t need, all for that brief rush of joy you get when making your purchase. You haven’t smoked in more than a decade, but you miss it more than usual.

There’s a well-documented link between burnout and addiction. Some turn to alcohol and drugs for the first time because of burnout. Those who struggled in the past are likely to relapse under strain.

When I got burned out, I started hate-reading people on social media compulsively. This isn’t a big deal, except that it robbed me of hours I could have spent with people I love. It enhanced my bad mood and feelings of pessimism, and I couldn’t stop even though I wanted to.

Work haunts your dreams

Burnout can creep into your dreams.

You may have repetitive nightmares of being back at school and getting humiliated by some teacher you never think about anymore. Or you may dream about being trapped, drowned, buried, and so on. My burnout nightmares usually featured some lost item everyone blamed me for.

Also Read: Customer service agents are feeling burned out, how can we help them?

Another weird symptom of burnout is having “flat dreams”. If your dreams are normally colourful and imaginative, and you’re suddenly having plotless, boring dreams, that could mean the stress is getting to you.

Your sleeping patterns are all over the place

Going to sleep becomes fraught when you hate the thought of going to work in the morning. You may find yourself going to bed later and later each day. Or you stay up in bed for hours, scrolling your feeds aimlessly in the hope of distraction.

Sleeping patterns get especially messy on weekends or vacations. You sleep in, wake up listless, spend your day in a haze, and then have trouble falling asleep. The more you’re annoyed by your inability to sleep, the harder it is to relax.

For many years, taking time off was touted as the best cure for burnout. Now we know that it doesn’t work like that: burnout makes true rest impossible.

You’re losing your imagination

If you’re burnt out, and someone tells you to imagine the future, you don’t know what to say. You’re taking life one day at a time, work has robbed you of the ability to look ahead.

But that’s not all. From personal experience, I can say that burnout changes your inner world.

You’re less expressive, and it’s harder for you to describe feelings (or even think about them). You feel blank, emptied out inside, but overwhelmed at the same time. You can’t imagine a better way forward.

The ugly truth

Everyone needs to know how to spot burnout in themselves and their loved ones, but recognition won’t solve the problem. Burnout isn’t something you can handle through positive thinking or better time management. You have to tackle it directly.

Therapy can help, and so can certain lifestyle changes. But keep in mind that burnout is a response to your circumstances.

Sometimes, the only way to escape it is to change the circumstances in question. Talk to your boss, demand a change, and quit if you have to. No job is worth this kind of suffering.

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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

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In September, greentech startup Zuno Carbon was named the winner of the Startup Arena Pitch Battle organised by Tech in Asia and East Ventures in Singapore.

The competition was looking for a winner that was able to present compelling and innovative solutions that addressed challenges in the environment, social, and governance (ESG) fields. Selected as one of the six finalists, Zuno Carbon was named as a winner after a rigorous process of selection by a panel of industry and panel experts.

Founded in 2020, the Singapore-based company was founded by a team of engineers who believed that being sustainable should be easier.

In an email interview with e27, Zuno Carbon CEO Hari Nair says that the company’s work can be described as “products [that] help organisations measure and reduce their environmental impact.”

It provides end-to-end carbon management solutions for organisations of all sizes that provide unprecedented visibility into their supply chain emissions. The company is working toward enabling ESG teams to shift their focus and resources from merely reporting to actually reducing their environmental impact with the help of AI-generated insights.

Also Read: Beyond buzzwords: How climate tech startups can create an impact in green recovery

“Calculating one’s carbon footprint is not easy; there are a lot of different data sources and vendors to account for, and doing this manually takes a lot of time and effort,” Nair says.

“Some of our competitors use just financial data (i.e. how much you spend on supplies, materials) in order to estimate the footprint. However, we go beyond that to look at on-the-ground operational data. This allows companies to get a better understanding of where their emissions are coming from, and we use this granular data to show them how they can reduce their emissions as well.”

In developing their solutions, Zuno Carbon prioritised agile and user-centric design practices.

“We have two-week sprints, at the end of which we are able to release an incremental and valuable improvement to the platform. As such, it makes it easy for us to deploy our solutions and take in customer feedback to iterate and fine-tune the product to meet customer needs,” Nair says.

In the future, Zuno Carbon will develop its product further to offer an AI recommendation engine to automate carbon reduction strategies. It will also include a reporting module allowing organisations to report their social, governance, and environmental metrics.

“Thus providing a full ESG reporting solution,” Nair stresses.

Also Read: Amasia introduces impact assessment framework for climate tech companies

Greentech in Southeast Asia

Around the world, as the climate situation intensifies, there has been greater attention given to companies that can potentially positively impact our fight against climate change. In Southeast Asia (SEA) particularly, discussions about climate tech investments have intensified as companies in the vertical continue to appear.

Things are not always rosy as greentech companies face some unique challenges in the market. “Sometimes sustainability is at the bottom of a company’s priority list, especially for SMEs and large local companies,” Nair points out.

But this does not mean the region has no future for green tech.

“SEA is a hub for manufacturing, energy, and all sorts of industrial activity. As such, there is also a significant amount of emissions in the region. Governments and regulatory authorities have already begun imposing restrictions and reporting requirements on companies in this sector, and as the nature of activities vary from region to region, it is important that we cater to the local ecosystem,” Nair says.

“We aim to capture the market for carbon management in ASEAN across the energy, manufacturing, real estate, and logistics segments.”

In acquiring potential users, Zuno Carbon offers flexible subscription plans and workshops to help companies take stock of their sustainability efforts and see how its product can help them in this journey to bring them on board.

Also Read: Climate tech is in a chicken-and-egg situation in Southeast Asia

Most of their clients are larger companies with complex supply chains that want to change how they affect the world around them.

Zuno Carbon raised a pre-seed funding round earlier this year, and it is aiming to raise a seed funding round in the next three to four months or the end of 2022.

Next year, it plans to expand further into the region and release its AI recommendation engine to truly power decarbonisation for SMEs and MNCs.

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Fundraising or preparing your startup for fundraising? Build your investor network, search from 400+ SEA investors on e27, and get connected or get insights regarding fundraising. Try e27 Pro for free today.

Image Credit: Zuno Carbon

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Choco Up, a revenue-based financing and growth platform, has announced a partnership with Dream Impact, a social enterprise and impact network in Hong Kong.

Under this partnership, Choco Up aims to deploy up to US$5 million in non-dilutive booster capital to help social enterprises and ventures across different impact themes developed by Dream Impact in line with the UN’s 17 Sustainable Development Goals.

The themes include diversity, equity & inclusion (DEI), circular economy and human-centric education.

These thematic initiatives bring together different parts of society on each of these topics to identify social needs and develop social innovation initiatives. Choco Up’s growth funding is anticipated to help socially conscious businesses to achieve their vision and mission.

This partnership brings Choco Up’s knowledge, resources and expertise to Dream Impact and its network of impact-focused founders and enterprises.

Also Read: What Choco Up wants you to know about running a revenue-based financing platform in Asia

This cross-sector collaboration opens the door to multi-million dollar funding for numerous socially conscious businesses, empowering Dream Impact to amplify the impact of its work and Choco Up to expand its social footprint across industries.

Brian Tsang, Co-Founder and COO of Choco Up, said: “The partnership with Dream Impact marks an important milestone in our impact finance journey as we continue to expand our reach in the impact space and work towards enhancing financial inclusion for socially conscious businesses across Asia.”

Dream Impact is an impact-first organisation in Hong Kong committed to connecting social entrepreneurs to resources, bridging communities for collaboration and deepening impact in different fields.

“Choco Up understands the value of social enterprises and impact ventures that aim to shape the future that we collectively want. It shares our vision of a society where everyone is conscious of the work they do, the things they buy and the values they advocate,” said Dorothy Lam, Co-Founder and Chief Catalyst of Dream Impact.

Choco Up is a global technology and financial service platform providing e-commerce and startups with revenue-based financing and business growth solutions. It provides hyper-growing companies with non-dilutive funding and a flexible repayment schedule. It invests between US$10,000 and US$5 million per startup.

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Fundraising or preparing your startup for fundraising? Build your investor network, search from 400+ SEA investors on e27, and get connected or get insights regarding fundraising. Try e27 Pro for free today.

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More than just a trending buzzword, digital transformation has become a must-do for organisations. The ever-growing threat of digital disruption and pandemic-driven uncertainty has radically thrust businesses into rethinking how they operate.

In fact, according to Foundry’s 2021 Digital Business survey, 91 per cent of organisations have already adopted, or are planning to adopt, digital-first business strategies.

Yet, amid the flurry to pivot and adapt, it isn’t uncommon for organisations to overlook a key success factor in their transformation journey: people.

At the heart of any successful digital transformation lies the harmonious interplay between technology and people.

However, I’ve often seen many businesses place excessive importance on flashy new digital solutions and fail to recognise that any major organisation-wide change depends on and starts with their employees. If either element is absent or neglected, the potential for success plummets, evidenced by how only a meagre five per cent of digital transformation projects achieve or exceed expectations.

Also Read: The 5-part agile leadership guide that will make you a better business leader

So, to maximise the long-term success of digital transformation, organisations need to focus on the human side of change and prioritise the three essential elements of leadership, culture, and employee engagement.

Leadership: Envisioning change and communicating it well

Leadership can make or break digital transformation initiatives. From conception to implementation, it’s paramount for leaders at all levels to be aligned on a well-defined vision.

After all, as MIT Sloan School of Management senior lecturer Dr George Westerman once said, “If you think about digital transformation as two words, we pay too much attention to the digital and not enough to transformation. It’s not a technology challenge, it’s a leadership one.”

This requires leaders to have a clear picture of what digital transformation means for the company, the value it can provide, and the potential challenges to overcome along the way. When leaders are in tune with initiatives, they can act as champions for change within their business units and inspire confidence for them to take the first step toward transformation.

But having a clear vision is one thing; executing it well is another. Leaders play a key role in communicating their vision to their teams and being transparent about how the new initiatives can elevate employees’ work and equip them with vital skills for better performance and career progression.

By enabling employees to understand the potential of digital transformation, organisations can win their buy-in and empower them to collaborate towards a shared goal.

Culture: Fostering experimentation and agility

Another element that forms the bedrock for successful digital transformations is organisational culture. Indeed, studies have shown that 87 per cent of C-suites and executives agree culture creates bigger barriers to digital transformation than technology.

Since organisational culture starts at the top, leaders are usually the ones to establish and reinforce the company’s shared values. But if they hold all the cards, this might get in the way of introducing new initiatives.

Think of traditional corporate hierarchies and digital transformation like oil and water, with the former following a strict chain of command while the latter calls for agile decision-making and an open mindset.

Digital transformations are inherently uncertain, requiring constant experimentation and cross-team collaboration. This, in turn, requires a culture that encourages employees to innovate freely, collaborate, and correct mistakes as they go.

That’s why companies with flat organisational structures, like Silicon Valley start-ups and today’s millennial-led firms, are better poised to succeed in their digital transformations.

By removing layers of complexity and empowering employees at all levels to make decisions that matter, organisations can create a safe environment where people aren’t afraid of the unfamiliar and, ultimately, embrace change.

Employee engagement: Tap into your greatest asset

Employees can be agents of digital transformation or its victims. Any significant transformation is a massive undertaking, but it’s even harder when employees are uncertain and detached from the process.

Also Read: What is derailing your digital transformation?

But why shouldn’t you involve them from the beginning? Employees possess a wealth of intimate knowledge of processes, customers, and operations and are the people whose daily lives will be impacted by new initiatives. When organisations fail to engage employees, they threaten the success and adoption of digital initiatives.

Kickstart any digital transformation initiatives by involving your employees and helping them understand their roles, workflows, and needs. By engaging with your people via workshops and discussions, businesses can gain nuanced ground-level insight into operational processes and customer needs. This allows management to then refine their digital transformation strategies to ensure they best serve their employees.

Employee engagement also fosters a sense of ownership and collaboration among workers, dispelling the perception of digital transformation as top-down or IT-related initiatives. Doing so transforms employees into advocates, fostering greater innovation and motivation to make the transformation a success.

So, whether you’re forging your own path ahead or tapping on digital transformation solutions, set your organisation up for success by having a clear vision, creating an open-minded culture, and actively engaging with employees.

This article has been co-authored by Imran Mohd, Consultant of the Strategy Centre of Excellence at Temus, a digital transformation company established by Temasek in strategic partnership with UST.

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Singapore-based Betafi, which provides a unified user research platform, has received US$1.3 million in pre-seed funding led by Together Fund, Entrepreneur First, and Titan Capital.

Nir Eyal and the founders of Razorpay, Pine Labs, Snapdeal, and Livspace, also joined.

Despite technological advancement, user research remains manual, time-consuming, and daunting. As a result, 80 per cent of new products don’t go through early-stage testing resulting in expensive rework down the line.

Arjun Arora and Ethan Sherbondy also encountered similar challenges at their previous workplaces. This prompted them to develop Betafi.

Also Read: Why the success of your startup depends on software testing

“User research is still a manual process and involves a fair amount of logistics. We want to take the busy work out of the process, so you focus on what is truly important, uncovering insights. Ultimately, we want UX research to be as ubiquitous as software testing is today,” CEO Arora.

Betafi helps product teams conduct user interviews and usability tests effortlessly to validate their ideas, designs, beta software, and websites. The platform integrates with tools such as Zoom, Miro, Figma, and Adobe XD, making it easier to collaborate and build feedback loops in product development.

The startup claims the product saves users up to 30 per cent of total research time and effort, allowing them to focus on extracting meaningful insights to build incredible products.

Betafi was co-created with customers and launched on Product Hunt in September. Since then, the platform usage has increased by 50 per cent month-on-month, and users have done over 1,500 hours of feedback calls, claim the company.

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Web3 community Metacamp has opened an NFT-gated Web3 co-working space in Singapore with the help of blockchain firm Solana.

This education, community and co-working space focuses on blockchain technologies and Web3. The space will focus on blockchain innovations, talents and companies.

“The occupants learn, connect and build through exclusive events. They learn in-depth about blockchain skills, projects and industry trends. They connect informally with startups, investors, talents, partners, and users. They experience a conducive and dynamic work environment to validate and grow their business,” said Metacamp Co-Founder Jonas Chen.

It has three floors and can accommodate more than 100 people (or 20 startups with up to five team members). The co-working space is divided into fixed desks and hot desks.

Amenities such as high-speed wifi, monitors, and sit-stand desks are provided.

Also Read: To leverage Web3 technologies, Web2 companies may start by building the right culture

Besides, individuals will benefit from meeting like-minded people and connecting with other startups, investors and talents in the ecosystem.

The NFT-gated system provides a secure method of entry into the co-working space. “The NFT-gated system allows approved members to enter the premises by holding an NFT in their crypto wallet,” added Chen.

The Metacamp co-working space charges a fee for membership, education services, and event hosting.

According to Chen, post-COVID-19, some people have become comfortable working remotely while some seek in-person interactions. He believes innovations can only spark through informal interactions.

Metacamp was founded in early 2022 by a group of Web3 professionals with a vision to grow professionals within the space by offering Solana-focused community events, education programmes, and corporate workshops. Since then, it has grown to a community of 600+ members.

 

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Many businesses are unsure how to systematise their operations to scale their company without the headache. How does one prepare their business for the unexpected and create a lean, profitable machine? And what is holding back small, digital agencies from growth? 

By 2024, small businesses could add up to 2.3 trillion dollars to the global GDP growth. However, recent historical events have drastically impacted small businesses.

The fall of small businesses

The COVID-19 pandemic, for instance, hit small businesses hard. Up to 96 per cent of all small businesses were affected by the pandemic, as 59 per cent of these companies had to lay off a substantial number of their employees.

In fact, nearly 30 per cent of small businesses closed their doors permanently due to the global pandemic. Globally, 20 per cent of women-led small businesses reported closing compared to 16 per cent of small businesses led by men. BIPOC-led small businesses were at least 50 per cent more likely to report permanent closures, reduced sales, and employee layoffs.  

The rise in numbers

However, in 2021, the global small business closure rate fell from 24 per cent to 18 per cent. Just about 34 per cent of small businesses reported lower sales than a year ago, indicating the upward trajectory of small business sales.

In the United States, closure rates fell to only 16 per cent. The future for small businesses thus looks brighter than the recent difficult years. For instance, Americans created 2.8 billion more online micro-businesses in 2020 than in 2019. Moreover, 67 per cent of these micro-businesses plan to expand into full-time operations. 

Likewise, 50 per cent of small businesses are focused on digital agency growth and rebuilding in this more promising time for the global economy. However, 36 per cent of small businesses report still being in survival mode due to the pandemic.

20 per cent of small businesses have drastically altered their business models since the pandemic, and 62 per cent of businesses that shifted entirely to digital business models plan to maintain and expand options moving forward.

Also Read: COVID-19 and the wave of business digitalisation

45 per cent of small businesses are ready to start planning for a digital future, while 28 per cent of small businesses are already working on this integration into the digital sphere. 

Consistency in growth

Businesses should prepare for the unexpected in these optimistic yet ever-changing times. Many small business owners take full responsibility for nearly every aspect of their business, including 75 per cent of sales, 75 per cent of client management, 72 per cent of hiring and onboarding training, 72 per cent of overall team performance, and 50 per cent of the ultimate delivery and results.

Consequently, more than half of small business owners are reported to be too terrified to leave their businesses for time off or a vacation. In fact, three out of four small business owners are not prepared for their second-in-command to take a temporary leave. 

And most small businesses are not prepared for unexpected challenges or unexpected successes. More than 96 per cent of small businesses are unprepared to handle a sudden influx of leads. Similarly, more than 80 per cent of small businesses are not prepared to handle one huge new client, and 79 per cent are not prepared to get as little as ten new clients in a single week.

Therefore, now is the time to build a resilient and scalable business to handle the fluctuation of the consumer market and optimise revenue. Small businesses can create a complete and optimised business system to easily delegate needs. This system allows businesses to track the performance of each pillar to identify strengths and gaps within the workplace. 

These pillars include workflow, tech stack, documents, training, and metrics. As a result, businesses can easily see the repeatable steps to track progress, streamline processes to run more efficiently, support assets so they do not have to start from scratch every time, enable people to perform each process and reach levels of excellence, and measure the efficacy of each of the processes. 

Businesses wondering where they stand compared to their competition can check the varying opportunity matrixes. These show how 400-plus agencies ranging from US$250 thousand to US$7 million in annual revenue performed across the five pillars and seven functions of their business.

The seven functions include sales process, client onboarding, production, client management, reporting, hiring process, and team onboarding. Identify gaps in your business to yield greater success.

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