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.

–

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

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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.

—

This article was first published by Global Class.

Image Credit: Global Class

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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.

– –

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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Going into 2022, Victor Lim and the team realised they needed to do something different to stay ahead of the curve in the cloud kitchen industry. The Philippines economy was re-opening, and dine-in was hitting pre-pandemic numbers, so the timing was perfect for experimenting with new features.

“We were originally working on an interactive VR experience in a virtual food hall concept. However, we couldn’t achieve that ‘wow’ experience we looked for. So we shifted gears, and in the end, we found a much better way by launching the Kra-Verse Food Hall (KFH),” Lim, Co-Founder and CEO Kraver’s Group (operator of the cloud kitchen startup Kraver’s Canteen), tells e27.

Kra-Verse Food Hall is a concept developed by Kraver’s Group to provide an interactive metaverse experience for F&B brands. Customers can walk into the ‘buildings’ of its brand partners, explore the virtual food hall, and run to other customers walking around in the space with live video capabilities. The KFH staff walk around as ‘waiters’, taking live orders and answering customers’ questions.

“The objective here is to recreate the experience of an offline food brand, wherein customers can walk in, browse menus, and order their favourite dishes. Being online-only brands, cloud kitchen startups don’t get the same branding and offline recognition benefits as other brands, which is a disadvantage. By utilising these new technologies, we just found a way to turn our digital nativity into an advantage,” Lim explains.

Also Read: How Philippine cloud kitchen industry is piggybacking on the country’s unique food culture, shifting customer behaviour

Kra-Verse Food Hall is a collection of six in-house online brands, including CharSilog, Jok Time Lugaw, I Love U, Stew, Everything Gravy’d, and krave. The firm has also partnered with US-based D. Wade Burger, a brand owned by NBA legend Dwyane Wade. Kraver’s Canteen will operate the brand exclusively in the Philippines and set up meet-n-greets and various activities for Wade to connect deeper with the archipelago.

As part of the KFH project, Kraver’s Canteen has also introduced a new self-heating technology. It utilises activated carbon and measured distilled water to create a ‘self-heating’ chemical reaction, which keeps the food hot for up to 15 minutes.

The team also explores new use cases for this technology, from boiling stews to sizzling platters, melted nacho cheese to dessert fondues.

The Philippines is a fast-growing market for Web3 and metaverse. There are different versions of and applications for metaverse technology, and many of them are doing well in the Philippines. The Philippines is a key market for the popular play-to-earn game Axie Infinity, which is a rage among the youth. It shows the incredible cycle of growth in technology and innovation in the country in general, particularly these last few years. Kraver’s aims to leverage this growth to introduce new products.

“Kra-Verse Food Hall is just one of the most immediate and fun things we were able to set up for the customers that apply this technology, but we are also investing in other applications,” Lim notes. “We will pilot its first dine-in location in Makati in partnership with Kaya Founders to enable diners to enjoy a plated meal from Kraver’s while browsing and purchasing NFTs from local artists and creators. This space is intended for founders and funders to get together with an augmented meta-experience.”

Also Read: Everything from soup to nuts: Meet the 27 ghost kitchen startups in Southeast Asia

Lim says he is excited about the metaverse space and its future potential for artists, creators, and brands. “It’s super interesting because there are so many different forms of metaverses and applications that may be relevant for various brands. We found a fun way to use this technology for the F&B space. Still, the space would be equally as exciting for instant commerce brands or any other plays that leverage the digital economy, online-first,” he concludes.

Launched in 2020 by Lim, Eric Dee, and Victor Mapua, Kraver’s is backed by Quest Ventures and Foxmont Capital. The startup recently raised a US$3 million Series A round led by Quest Ventures Asia Fund II. This came almost a year after securing a US$1.5 million seed round led by Foxmont Capital.

The cloud kitchen’s list of investors also includes Brian Cu, Christopher Po, George Pua, Lance Gokongwei, Paulo Campos III, the Foodee Group, Oak Drive Ventures, Martin Cu, Francis Wee, Anthony Oundjian and Rohit Gulati.

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A few months back, I needed help hiring a few great freelancers. So I naturally posted on LinkedIn asking for recommendations.

Within 24 hours, my inbox got flooded with messages from all sorts of agencies. I had such a hard time going through all messages that I needed to pull in one of my colleagues to help.

At first glance, that sounds like a great success. I needed help and got plenty of options. But when I started looking deeper, 95 per cent of all messages came from mediocre agencies. Their websites were terrible. I could not find any social proof, and the people reaching out to me were way too pushy. Rather than trying to understand my needs, they tried to force their way in.

So I copied the same message and shared it in a few paid communities where I am a member. Organisations such as OnDeck, Reforge, and DemandCurve. A few days later, I met a great copywriter who is currently working with us. The volume of requests was lower, but the quality was substantially higher.

Also Read: Demystifying NFTs and DeFi

That prompted me to write the following:

That was not the first time when I tried to source great talent or insights via platforms such as LinkedIn, Quora, and Facebook –and got disappointed. Please note that I am pretty active on LinkedIn with about 5,500 followers, many of them highly curated connections.

Despite that, over time, I have decreased my outreaches via LinkedIn and doubled down on paid communities. Communities where the members are fewer but better curated. That has helped me spend less time on unqualified prospects and more time-solving hard problems.

The more I reflect on that experience, the more I start seeing value in two upcoming verticals:

• Paid communities
• NFTs

Paid communities and a brief history of the internet

Web1

In Web1, we discovered the internet through dial-up modems, which helped us access static web pages. By today’s standards, web1 was a laughable experience. I still remember how an average movie took three days to download during my childhood. The internet was slow, expensive, and had a terrible user experience.

Yet, the fact that we could share information so easily with the entire world had an incredible impact on our progress. Before the internet, we relied on printed books. We could spread information only at the speed of physical distribution. Access to information was slow, gated, and not even possible in some parts of the world.

Also Read: Meet the 22 Web3 investors that are ready to rock the future with your startup

Platforms such as Craiglist got a lot of traction because they served as digital yellow pages. Yes, indeed, the experience of browsing such venues was not extraordinary. But users could easily access organised directories of relevant information like never before in human history.

Web2

Throughout the past 10 to 20 years, we have seen the rise of the second wave of the internet, the so-called Web2. Three core innovations enabled Web2:

• Mobile
• Social
• Cloud

All those innovations unleashed many attempts to unbundle well-established, horizontal marketplaces. The classic example here is the unbundling of Craiglist:

It is important to note that the image above points out only the success cases. Many startups attempted similar approaches but failed. Some disruptors lacked the necessary frequency of usage. Other, adequate business models to build sustainable businesses.

Yet, the startups that survived have often turned out to be more powerful than the entire horizontal platform as a whole. In other words, niche products can have a substantially better user experience. That allows them to capture a massive market share from both digital and analogue players.

“The moral of the story is this: In all but a few circumstances, the broad horizontal verticals eventually break. They become a victim of their own success. As the platforms grow, their submarkets grow too; their product gets pulled in a million different directions. Users get annoyed with an experience and business that caters to the lowest common denominator.

“And suddenly, what was previously too small a market to care about is a very interesting place for a standalone newco. Like clockwork, a new wave of innovation begins to swell, picking off the compelling verticals the new horizontal players cannot satisfy,” says Jeff Jordan and D’Arcy Coolican.

Also Read: 3moji aims to transform the way NFTs are used in metaverse with its composable avatars

On LinkedIn

Let’s go back to LinkedIn and how its value has been slowly depleting. As the platform grows and attempts to monetise more verticals, the experience for the average user degrades.

“The unbundling of Linkedin will create 20+ companies worth US$5 billion+. Heavily segmented, heavily verticalised, with highly specific functionality for each vertical. Let the unbundling of Linkedin begin,” says Harry Stebbings on Twitter.

LinkedIn is an excellent platform for some use cases. For example, think of recruiters and salespeople. But for more specialised verticals like blue-collar workers, engineers, or healthcare professionals, the platform fails to create the minimum necessary value.

To prove this point, consider the growing number of highly specialised startups: engineering (Hired), blue-collar (Wonolo), healthcare professionals (Docquity), hospitality (Pared), oil and gas (Workrise), bookkeeping (Paro), etc.

Each of those platforms builds digital experiences that are considerably better. Specialisation results in more personalisation and contextualisation for both candidates and employers than the generic LinkedIn model.

I do not mean to pick on LinkedIn alone, though. I think the same statement is true for Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and other similar platforms. The market is big enough for everyone. I expect those platforms to continue to exist and deliver value to shareholders. After all, the winners of the Web2 era helped us to:

• Discover and connect with people and companies around the world
• Build digital profiles and a sense of credibility on the web
• Databases of opportunities around the globe
• Valuable content and permissionless ability to create

But it does feel like those winners have started to stagnate. At such a scale, it’s simply too difficult to cater to everyone’s needs. Therefore, there are opportunities to unbundle further and thus create niche communities. Platforms that would be smaller by design but will have 10x better experiences.

Also Read: How one LinkedIn message changed the fate of my failing startup

The intersection of communities and education: OnDeck

Now let’s take the opposite stance and study niche communities. In particular, I would like to review OnDeck.

Everyone who knows me well has heard of OnDeck. I am pretty impressed with what the company has achieved in such a short period. In turn, I have been actively promoting the company to my entire network.

At its core, you can think of OnDeck as an educational platform.

“On Deck is building a modern, digitally native education platform at a fraction of the time and cost of traditional higher and continuing education.” –  What’s On Deck for On Deck? by Packy McCormick

The image below illustrates some of the current educational programmes and thus communities that OnDeck runs. When I first heard of OnDeck, there were only two to three fellowships. Today, I counted 28 programmes ranging from no-code to chief of staff and all the way to longevity biotech.

One of the challenges with building communities is that they are tough to scale. If you are not careful, the community will become a generic network like LinkedIn. A platform that attempts to cater to everyone will inevitably degrade the average user experience.

Also Read: Understanding the traction metrics that investors are looking for in an early stage startup

In business, that’s called “evaporative cooling”. Evaporative cooling occurs when high-value community members leave a community because they are not getting sufficient value. In turn, that leads to a decrease in the quality of the overall community.

OnDeck is one of the few platforms that has managed to scale its efforts while retaining a fantastic community gradually.

Initially, the company started with a Founders Fellowship. A typical approach for them would have been to continue growing that programme. Instead, they decided to build a variety of small, intimate communities that are complementary to one another. Each new programme is small enough to retain great talent but complimentary enough to reinforce other fellowships. The resulting flywheel is illustrated by the tweet below.

Today, OnDeck has built a platform where like-minded people go to learn, connect, find jobs, and create. In the process, they have re-imagined a variety of LinkedIn features:

• User profiles
• Recruitment via the OD first 50 programme and its talent demo days
• Early career coaching
• Vertical specific communities like health, education, fintech, climate, etc.

All that while maintaining an exceptional NPS score.

How do NFTs drive community identity?

At first glance, NFTs look de-attached from the narrative that I am driving. But if you study success cases of NFT-driven community forming, you will quickly realise how that’s not the case.

Non-fungible tokens (NFTs) are unique. You can think of them as web3 media assets. The most popular use case of NFTs today are pieces of art, but it can be a lot more. Music, code, tweets, gifs, access passes, digital identities, domains, game character skins, and even this very essay that I am writing can be converted into an NFT through a platform like Mirror.

Organisations like CryptoPunks and Bored Ape Yacht Club (now the same company) have shown us how communities can be formed around characters. Hate it or love it, most people think of NFTs as a trading asset.

But let’s leave the revenue generation opportunities aside. Instead, let’s focus on better cultural representation and streamlined collaboration. People who own a crypto punk or a bored ape feel a sense of belonging. They are part of the same community of somehow similar people. Most probably, each person who owns such an NFT shares similar characteristics:

• Middle upper class or higher as otherwise, you won’t be able to purchase such an expensive NFT.
• Interest in the forefront of technology, i.e., web3.
• Similar taste in aesthetics, you won’t purchase a particular NFT if you find the design unattractive.
• Tech-savviness. Otherwise, you won’t be able to deal with the complexity of purchasing and storing an NFT securely.

The list goes on and on. Theoretically, you can create characters representing distinct cultures and ethnic or religious minorities. The more depth an NFT collection has, the higher the probability of bringing together a group of similar people.

Also Read: Are NFTs and celebrities a match made in heaven?

Today, all NFT-formed communities take place on a Discord server, but that won’t be the case tomorrow. So while everyone is racing to create the metaverse, we see the first attempts to bring NFT-centred community members together to the offline world.

Contrary to what most people believe, good web3 communities have a strong sense of cooperation, support, and recognition. It’s not entirely focused on trading and get-rich-quick schemes.

For example, as a birthday present, I received an NFT which gave me access to a well-managed discord community, Zen Academy. Members are helpful to each other, and my NFT serves as an accreditation of credibility. Unless you have that NFT, you cannot access the community.

But once you do, members seem to be quite like-minded and supportive of each other. The founding members put a lot of effort into ensuring everyone shares similar values.

Those thoughts have been going through my mind for quite a while. On the one hand, established tech platforms are more powerful than ever. But on the other, the user experience and perceived value have been eroding. Trying to satisfy users from all walks of life is challenging.

As a result, the product gets pulled in a million different directions. In turn, that dynamic attracts new startups like vultures. Entrepreneurs are especially good at sensing opportunities.

Over time we start seeing a lot of disruption. So founders pick niche verticals and build gated communities, vertical marketplaces, and NFT collections. Driving 10x better experience for a niche community of similar people in the process.

Having said that, I think that the network effects of big tech companies like LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube make the products highly defensible, thus, difficult to disrupt.

So it will be challenging to reach a similar scale. But you do not have to. The market is large enough to accommodate smaller yet highly successful communities.

As the infamous saying goes: “There are only two ways to make money in business: One is to bundle; the other is to unbundle.”

You either aggregate or specialise.

–

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

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Website hacking is becoming increasingly common, no matter the size, scope or kind of organisation. In 2020, more than one million WordPress sites were hacked. On average, 30,000 websites are hacked each day, most owned by legitimate small businesses.

Despite these worrying facts about hacking websites, many companies still believe that hackers have no reason to attack websites because they are not hacked. Attackers are constantly crawling and snooping on websites to identify vulnerabilities to break into them and bid. 

Cybercriminals target startups to reach 50 per cent, because security measures may not be fully implemented. In SMEs, customer trust is critical in a time of widespread cybercrime and data privacy attacks. Startup owners now face the challenge of building consumer trust as they build their businesses.

Financial motivations trigger many websites hacks about hackers using sophisticated tools to break into cybersecurity, data files, and corporate servers. Negligent employees, contractors, and third parties cause the majority of data breaches. And startup owners should beware of this.

Through this article, we want to help you understand all startup cyber safety best practices.

What happens if startups get attacked?

The consequences of hacking are complex, time-consuming, and expensive, and can eventually shut down businesses. Hackers can steal a business’ confidential information, from its financial report, business plans, intellectual property, employees’ and customers’ information, and many more. 

In other words, hackers can take anything they want that may destroy your business’ reputation.

You may also read about cyber threat types.

Build a cybersecurity culture around employees

Team training is not just about improving their cybersecurity knowledge. But to build a culture of safety protocols in your team. In terms of security practices, everyone should be on one page to avoid all vulnerabilities.

Also Read: How much does cybersecurity cost and how to budget for it?

Some data breaches recorded over the years started with an employee accidentally opening a phishing email, or someone on the team accidentally leaking sensitive information. These should all be avoided.

Make a written security policy

Startups need a written security policy that is easily accessible to all employees and covers all possible hacking scenarios and how to respond to them. So that in the event of a hack, employees can use the security policy as a checklist to ensure compliance with standards.

Update your software

Threat actors are constantly looking for ways to exploit software vulnerabilities. Threats use ransomware and software to start installing hacking systems.

But you don’t have to worry, because software companies usually provide regular updates to deal with these types of problems when they are found and to make other fixes. So as a startup owner, you have to pay attention if your cybersecurity software makes the latest updates.

Restrict data access with a strong password

Startups, whose core team has no cybersecurity experience, will be vulnerable to data clutter.

To avoid this, it’s a good idea for each team member to protect their data with a unique, complex, and hard-to-decrypt password.

Also, ensure that your employees do not have access to download or install their own software programs. Restricting network access further increases the security of your network.

Do the same for customers, if they subscribe to or log into your site, ask them to use a complex password and two-step verification for their own protection.

Backup and encrypt your data

Always backup and encrypt all your data and keep it in a safe place. This technique helps stop the ransomware before it causes significant damage. If hackers save data for ransom, you have the option to wipe the device and start over with a new device. You can recover data from there.

 Encrypting data can also prevent hackers from decrypting stolen data.

Stay up to date with hacker news

Today, there are many variants of ransomware and malware. And this variant will probably continue to grow even more dangerous than the previous one. You can wait until your startup is hacked, to learn about the risks involved. But you have to be able to prevent it.

Try to follow blogs or news about cybersecurity for all new and existing threats.

Prepare for failure

When it comes to cybercrime and malware, there is absolutely no certainty. Even the safest companies can be hacked, but they can get out of hacking without damaging their reputation or customers because they have a plan of action.

Also Read: There is a concerning lack of cybersecurity talent. Here’s how to tackle it

Startups need to be prepared for all eventualities, look for good security systems, keep up with hacking trends, and constantly test and investigate security policies and best practices to keep them as secure as possible.

Engage with cybersecurity experts

The success of a tech startup depends heavily on speed and agility and investing time and resources in cybersecurity. Startup owners should work with a good security service provider, so they can focus on growing their business. 

There are many SOC service providers to assist business owners in overseeing cybersecurity in their companies. But with today’s technological developments, ArmourZero is here to help startup owners provide subscription-based cybersecurity. 

Startup owners don’t have to buy software licences and pay people to supervise, because ArmourZero does it all.

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Fintech company SYNQA today announced that it has rebranded to Opn altogether with the announcement of their US$120 million Series C+ funding round.

The funding round included the participation of JIC Venture Growth Investments, MUFG Bank, and Mars Growth Capital. It brings the total capital raised to over US$222 million to date.

In a press statement, the company said that it will utilise the funding to continue scaling its business and expanding into new geographies.

The rebranding itself was introduced to support the company’s expanded strategic vision and global aspirations. It aims to “better reflect the company’s strategic vision and bold purpose of enabling access to the digital economy for everyone.”

The company also stated that the new name underscores its commitment to making payment seamless and borderless for both people and businesses.

Also Read: Pocket power: 27 personal finance startups in SEA to help you manage money

“We are extremely excited and proud to bring on board this high-quality investment, allowing us to accelerate the development of our core payment solutions, while also expanding into new territories within our core markets of Southeast Asia and Japan and beyond,” said Jun Hasegawa, CEO and Founder of Opn.

“As we approach 10 years since we started as a payment gateway company, and now customised fintech solutions to help businesses grow, we have continued to obsess over how to make payment ever more seamless for both businesses and the people they serve. Through our fintech solutions, we are realising our vision of enabling access to the digital economy for everyone.”

Founded in 2013, Opn specialises in online payment, blockchain technology for fintech applications and digital transformation solutions for Southeast Asia and Japan markets.

The Opn platform is powered by its payment infrastructure sister company Omise Payment Holdings which provides one-stop online payment solutions.

Opn’s parent company SYNQA is one of the first companies to receive certification for its business plan from Japan’s Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) through a ministerial program that started in August 2021, guarantees private-sector loans for deep-tech venture companies.

Also Read: Resolution Ventures makes first close of US$20M fintech fund, targets early stage startups

Under this programme, companies that have had their business plans approved by METI are able to receive loans from private financial institutions approved by the METI. The loans are backed by the ministry’s Organization for Small & Medium Enterprises and Regional Innovation of Japan (SMRJ).

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Image Credit: Opn

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Indonesia-focused VC firm East Ventures announced today it has raised a total of US$550 million in the final close of its latest fund.

The firm will allocate US$150 million for early-stage deals and US$400 million for growth-stage deals, according to Willson Cuaca, Co-Founder and Managing Partner of East Ventures.

“We have been transforming ourselves from a seed-stage investor into a multi-stage investor and becoming an efficient and robust platform to support entrepreneurship,” he added.

“Digitalisation in Indonesia has become more robust, with a 73.7 per cent internet penetration rate in 2021 and equal digital competitiveness across the regions shown by the increased EV-DCI score from 2020 to 2022. We also saw the IPOs of some of Indonesia’s largest tech companies in recent times, a significant milestone in paving the way for other startups in the country to follow suit. We believe the strong initiatives made by the relevant stakeholders, such as the government, in promoting digitalisation through G20 Presidency, will further elevate the tech ecosystem and create even greater investment opportunities in Indonesia. At East Ventures, we will continue to double down our investments in Indonesia,” said East Ventures Managing Partner Roderick Purwana.

Also Read: East Ventures forms new US$88M seed fund for startups weathering COVID-19, announces first close

Founded in 2009, Singapore-headquartered East Ventures is a multi-stage investor that has backed over 200 seed- and growth-stage companies in Southeast Asia. It is the first investor of unicorns Tokopedia and Traveloka. Other notable companies in the portfolio include Ruangguru, SIRCLO, Kudo (acquired by Grab), Loket (acquired by Gojek), Tech in Asia, Xendit, IDN Media, MokaPOS (acquired by Gojek), ShopBack, KoinWorks, Waresix, and Sociolla.

East Ventures claims that it has experienced significant growth, with more than 200 portfolio companies graduating from seed to growth stages. The firm, which manages over U$1billion in AUM, has attracted US$6.7 billion in follow-on funding for its portfolio companies.

The VC firm also said it recorded more than US$86 billion of annualised GMV in aggregate by its portfolio. The firm will also incorporate sustainability aspects in every practice and usage of the funds.

East Ventures has launched many strategic initiatives in supporting the overall progress and development of Indonesia. They include supporting the digital transformation through its annual East Ventures and ensuring the sustainable investment and practices by signing the Principle of Responsible Investment (PRI), a UN-supported network of investors.

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Imagine you’re a founder at a hot-shot early-stage startup that’s just raised a ton of money. You hire your first high profile Vice President of Engineering (VPE) after months of searching, someone who you carefully vetted and came highly recommended by credible people. And, your VPE quits after less than 24 hours on the job.

Sounds crazy? Well, it happened with a fintech startup called Clinkle, in 2013. Founded by a then-22-year old Lucas Duplan, Clinkle raised US$25 million in June, in what was then the largest seed round ever announced in Silicon Valley history. They closed on a seasoned ex-Yahoo engineering leader, Chi-Chao Chang as their first VPE in December.

Clinkle was a secretive company, and wouldn’t divulge the true state of its product and strategic road map to an outsider. The founder was only willing to let someone go under the hood after signing.

Chang on his first day found out the company was planning a round of layoffs while hiring in a bunch of new senior folks, and the product and marketing strategy were in much poorer shape than he imagined. He wasn’t scared by hard work or a product that needed serious reworking. But fundamental disagreements over where the company was headed were not something that could be fixed.

The Clinkle story serves as a cautionary tale and doesn’t apply to the vast majority of searches I’ve worked on in the USA and Asia, though I’ve seen many situations where a hire gets dragged out.

A VPE is one of the most critical (and expensive) hires that an early-stage startup can make, and getting it right can save founders a lot of heartaches and stress down the road. The talent pool for technical leaders is also smaller and more untested in Southeast Asia, which makes it more challenging.

So let’s highlight some key Dos and Don’ts when hiring your first VPE.

Let’s hear the do’s

Do be very clear on what you need from this hire:

As a founder, ask yourself, what pain points should this hire solve? What projects are stuck on the back-burner until you fill this role? Those two questions will take you a long way toward writing an effective job description.

Being clear on the specific deliverables will allow you to figure out what are hard requirements, vs nice-to-haves. I like to use the following table:

Breaking down requirements into discrete categories forces you to drill down on the critical areas. This will help in writing a more thoughtful job description to circulate to your network and recruiters.

At the same time, be realistic as to what a VPE can do. A VPE’s main job should be to focus on the people and processes to build a scalable, productive and happy engineering organisation.

Depending on the stage, this person could be given a Head or Director of Engineering title. This is different from a CTO. who’s usually someone in the founding team with a strong technical background that’s able to get the initial architecture and product off the ground and set that roadmap.

Do have your pitch down for a technical leader:

For candidates who are in high demand, you have one shot to make a first impression. For series A/B companies, the founder/CEO should always take the first meeting. This lets you put your best foot forward in articulating the company mission and how important this role is. It also allows you to learn and calibrate the best fit for your company.

For technical leaders, be prepared to talk about why what you’re building is technically challenging and interesting. One of the key duties of a VPE is to help you hire and retain engineers. They need to feel confident they can go out there and sell that.

Also Read: 5 productivity tools for busy startup founders to stay focused in 2022

It’s all well and good to highlight what a collaborative culture you have and how you provide free lunches, but what most talented engineers really want is to work on something complex they can dig into.

Do go hard after the folks you want:

For high-quality candidates, i.e. folks that people you trust refer to you (whether it’s a recruiter, VC or someone in your network),  go after them! This is not the time to sit back and think “Oh if they’re interested, they will come back to me”. Reach out directly, and quickly.

When we were hiring Uber’s first CTO, founder Travis Kalanick took it upon himself to relentlessly seek out strong candidates. The candidate lives in Seattle and couldn’t find time to come to San Francisco in the next few weeks? No problem, Travis would get on a plane the next day and fly to meet them in person. You may not be able to convince or close the candidate  but you would have left a strong impression, built a relationship, and that person may refer someone else to you.

Once you feel you’ve found the right person, go all out to close them, being flexible on compensation as needed, getting their family’s buy-in, etc.

Don’t be afraid to ask for help and call in favours, ask your VC, recruiters or board members to talk to the people you are targeting. Busy candidates can often be more responsive to an email from a known VC versus an unknown founder.

Founders in our portfolio often ask me how to interview people more senior to them; I can then connect them to seasoned VPEs to help them prepare for such interviews. People can be remarkably generous and often flattered to be asked for help.

Now, onto the don’ts

Don’t hide (all) the bad stuff, be transparent and honest:

Tying this back to the Clinkle debacle, don’t try to hoodwink candidates and tell them you’re further along than you are, have more funding than you have secured, or that you don’t have any technical debt. The truth will come out  and you want a candidate to be aware of what they’re getting into before signing on the dotted line.

Sometimes founders feel like they need to only show the good stuff and hide the stuff they are really worried about, for fear of scaring away candidates. Trust me, any experienced leader will have seen their fair share of crazy, chaotic, screwed up situations. And you can build trust early if you can embrace these and make them part of solving the problems.

Don’t rule out people who aren’t from your tribe:

Cultural fit and chemistry are extremely important. Ultimately this is someone you will be working with closely and there needs to be a ton of mutual trust and respect. But sometimes “not a cultural fit” becomes code for “this person doesn’t look, act or feel like me, therefore they must not be qualified”.

Also Read: How companies can nurture the next generation of tech talent today

Wanting people from your tribe, eg: same school, same background, same sex   is natural but can be dangerous when hiring your first external senior hires and getting to a diverse team. I am encouraged that I see this issue less in Southeast Asia, by virtue of there being so much richness in diversity and the rise of remote teams.

I once worked with an early stage fintech firm with a pretty cookie-cutter, the non-diverse engineering team of 20, looking to hire their first VPE. They were callous and in my view, disrespectful when meeting with some (qualified) candidates.

The CEO would show up late for meetings and sometimes cut the meeting short after 15 minutes when he felt the “chemistry wasn’t there”. When pressed what exactly that meant, it seemed to come down to whether the candidate was someone he would want to grab a beer with, and didn’t speak English with an accent.

It’s not wrong to rely on instinct. Our gut often tells us things that can’t be rationalised. But also be aware (especially if you are a young founder) that the things you look for and are comfortable with may lead you to exclude people who could actually be great for the job but just aren’t the “type” you are used to.

And whether you are discriminating against and ruling out people due to your unconscious biases. Take a beat to think about why some candidates resonated with you and not.

Don’t hold out for the Unicorn aka Purple Squirrel:

Back in the 2010s in Silicon Valley, we would refer to a candidate who ticked EVERY SINGLE BOX that a founder wanted as a unicorn,  elusive and mythical. Nowadays the term unicorn is used more to describe companies with billion-dollar valuations, so I’ll revert to another lesser-known term, the Purple Squirrel: this is used to describe sought-after candidates with the perfect, but often impossible, a combination of skills for a given job.

I once worked on a search for a very attractive Series D company where it took us over two years to find the right VPE candidate. During that time I went on maternity leave twice!

Did they end up with a great candidate? Yes, but the process was so long because we had a very long list of target “reach” candidates (every single VP at Google and Facebook) and there were too many people involved in the decision making, which made it easy to find something wrong with every candidate.

For founders in Southeast Asia, where the market is less developed and there aren’t as many folks who have successfully scaled multiple startups, don’t get overly focused on specific brand names, paper qualifications and pedigrees.

Google, Apple, etc were once startups but now are massive public companies. Hiring an ex-Googler does not guarantee quality and might not deliver the skillset your startup needs. Hiring someone who is very good at managing a team of 100+ engineers may not be the right person to manage a team of 25 engineers.

Also Read: Singapore faces talent crunch for engineering and product manager roles: Report

So, let go of the idea of the perfect candidate and focus more on applicable skills for the role — this will be in terms of actual hands-on qualifications and also in personality and approach.

Do you need a scrappy problem-solver, an agile team player, or a deadline-driven technician? Think about how “knows how to mentor and make people feel heard” may be more of a draw for a VPE role in your organisation than “is the best coder the world has ever seen.”

Final thoughts

In summation, a great VPE that is right for your organisation can make the difference between success and failure at the early stage. So, look beyond just technical skills and reflect on the quality of their character, and always do your reference checks and backchannels!

I welcome comments/feedback/questions which I’ll digest over time, reach me here at LinkedIn.

Disclaimer: Any content provided on this post are views of my own and does not represent the views or opinions of Monk’s Hill Ventures and its affiliates.

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The onset of the pandemic blindsided many businesses in Singapore and inadvertently placed social media at the heart of a company’s outreach strategy. It no longer became an option to have a social media presence. It was the place to see and be seen, helping brands to remain relevant and continue to engage better with their audiences.

In Singapore, there were 4.7 million social media users in 2020 (out of a total population of almost six million people), and close to 90 per cent of the population used the internet. This number is expected to grow more than 93 per cent by 2025, according to Statista, showing no signs of the digital network slowing down in the Lion City.  

Most brands jumped onto the social media bandwagon to ensure survivability, making the space crowded and noisy and easy for a company’s reach to be hampered. What’s more is today’s audience is constantly distracted and interrupted, with customer attention spans drastically dropping. 

Despite these setbacks, businesses can still organically reach and engage with communities to navigate business growth through the web, successfully. What does it take to do that?

What is organic reach?

Organic reach is a social media marketing metric measuring the number of unique accounts that have seen a post on a social media platform.  In short, it measures how many people have seen the post once.

Most importantly, organic reach excludes any reach resulting from paid promotion, and it specifically measures the natural or ‘organic’ reach of the post.

Sometimes paid promotions and ad boosts are not accessible to all, leaving businesses wondering what they can do to increase their organic reach and make sure they are interacting with the right audience. 

Here are six ways businesses can increase organic reach:

Eyeing the prize

The golden rule for businesses to engage better is to concentrate their efforts on a few platforms core to their business, as opposed to sharing content across multiple social media channels in the name of ‘spreading the word’.  

Also Read: 5 video marketing trends that marketers can leverage in 2022

There are many factors to take into account when picking and choosing the right social media platform. Where is the audience spending most of their time? What is working for the brand’s competitors? These are questions businesses should be thinking about. 

Also considering those different demographics spend different amounts of time across different platforms, while YouTube and WhatsApp are the most popular social media channels in Singapore, Facebook is currently losing interest in the eyes of the younger generation who are flocking to Instagram, TikTok and Snapchat. 

Optimising social media platforms

Social media algorithms, much like search engines, are designed to find pages matching a user’s criteria and deliver them in the feed. This implies that brands should optimise social media content in the same way as a website.

Brands want to be remembered, easy to find and give their customers a smooth experience to follow through on their journey with their business. Usernames have to be readable, short and easy to remember, and photos/logos need to be recognisable to the brand.

A professional-looking social media account is more likely to ensure customers engage with the brand online. The company’s ‘about’ section and website are also key to making customers follow through with the brand from the social media platform; they need to be keyword-rich and trackable.

Trendjacking as a way to boost marketing efforts

I’ve talked about the noise already existing and cluttering the social media space. Trendjacking content provides useful information to a brand’s social media audience in a timely and relevant fashion, allowing the material to ‘work smarter’ and increase interaction rates, while retaining good sentiment. Ultimately, this benefits the brand by improving awareness.

Showcasing the brand’s social listening skills helps them build better recall and will best serve the online community, placing trust in the brand’s ability to share with their audience only what is relevant to them.  

Noting down what trends to ride, along with choosing the right content format and platform, gives businesses the ability to move quickly on the opportunities that come their way. 

Post evergreen content to social media channels

Although audience attention spans are limited, it doesn’t mean brands should give up on evergreen content. Evergreen content will be relevant and discoverable to the brand’s audience indefinitely.  Popular hashtags are a good way to make sure material can be found again. 

Also Read: Former Airbnb marketing head on building a global community through international expansion

Quality over quantity

To break through the social chatter online, brands should focus on getting their posts tailored and relevant. At times, less is more. Posting quality and relevant content than worrying about frequency and volume of content will help improve engagement. 

Target hours and social media spend

A myth that still exists is that posting during peak online periods is the greatest play, but it means brands are also publishing content when everyone else is. When waiting till non-peak hours to post, businesses will have a better chance of being heard among the noise of other postings online. 

Using an AI-powered marketing platform allows suggestions based on audience engagement so look into using tech that helps brands pinpoint the right time to post. It can also provide insights that allow brands to learn from the online interactions an audience is having with their content.

If a particular piece of content performs well organically, it will benefit from extra momentum created through ad spending and paid boosts, making the content work harder.

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