(An earlier version of this article wrongly mentioned the fund raised as US$3M. It has now been corrected.)

TablePointer, an energy-efficiency-as-a-service (EEaaS) startup in Singapore, has received over US$2.3 million in an oversubscribed seed funding round led by Wavemaker Partners, AgFunder, and ENGIE.

The funding will be used to add new features and product modules and enter fast-growing markets in Southeast Asia.

TablePointer helps businesses become more energy efficient through its EEaaS model. It provides IoT and AI solutions for energy efficiency at no upfront costs and manages their implementation, monitoring, and maintenance. Its plug-and-play energy efficiency technology primarily targets the food and beverage industry.

Also Read: This eco-friendly and energy-efficient air-conditioner cools you, not your room

By helping its customers reduce their energy consumption, TablePointer is helping to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and combat climate change.

Steve Melhuish, Chairman of TablePointer and Founding Partner, Wavemaker Impact, said: “The F&B industry has been slow to adopt sustainability solutions due to perceived lack of rapid ROI. TablePointer addresses this problem by offering a plug-and-play solution that provides immediate tangible savings and significant reduction in greenhouse emissions without any upfront costs. This has led to fast adoption by both small independent outlets and some of the largest most recognisable F&B chain brands.”

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Echelon Asia Summit 2023 brings together APAC’s leading startups, corporates, policymakers, industry leaders, and investors to Singapore this June 14-15. Learn more and get tickets here. Echelon also features the TOP100 stage, where startups can pitch to 5000+ delegates, among other benefits like connecting with investors, visibility through the platform, and other prizes. Join TOP100 here.

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You don’t need millions in VC funding to build a sustainable company. In fact, companies like eBay, HP and Dell were originally bootstrapped. 

At CodeInterview, we built a profitable seven-figure ARR business with minimal outside capital (cash still unused) and an average engineering team size of one. 

Along the way, we learned valuable lessons about building a lean company that I’ll share with you today. These are difficult times, especially for tech, so I hope these lessons will help you de-risk your business and come out of this crisis stronger than before. 

Here are seven lessons from building a seven-figure SaaS business with just one engineer.

Before starting

Before starting CodeInterview, I was running a dev agency working with clients like Microsoft, Nokia and ESPN.

My focus was on hiring engineers and building teams so I needed a way to quickly and accurately evaluate developer skills. This was back in 2014 so I couldn’t find any out-of-the-box solutions to this problem, especially when hiring remotely. 

So we built a simple tool for coding assessments to use in-house. This evolved into CodeInterview, a full-featured platform with programming tests, interviews and take-home projects. 

When we started selling it to other companies, it was much easier to develop new features and find the right people to talk to. This was because we understood the problem and actively used it in our own recruiting. 

Also Read: What founders need to watch out for before joining a startup accelerator

So rather than building in the dark, the lesson here is to scratch your own itch. This makes it easier to hit product-market fit without wasting time and resources on building the wrong things. 

Early feedback stage

To get early feedback, I offered CodeInterview to existing clients and some of my friends who were in senior engineering positions. It turned out that some of the must-have features we came up with had to be killed. 

Ever since then, one of our key priorities has always been ease of use and this led to a great benefit when building a lean company — very few customer support requirements. We have been able to effectively serve 60,000+ users so far with just one customer success specialist. 

So the lesson here is don’t be afraid to kill features — you will end up with a more intuitive product that doesn’t expand your overhead with each new customer. 

Investors or mentors? 

As mentioned in the intro, we did raise seed funding when starting CodeInterview. This was mostly to get access to people like Tim Draper, Ravi Belani and Steven Tamm (ex-Salesforce CTO) who became our investors. 

The first introduced us to some of our key customers. The latter taught us about selling to engineering teams at large organisations like Google and Adobe.

Another one of our investors, The Alchemist Accelerator, gave us a structured B2B sales curriculum and paired us with Kevin Ramani, ex-Head of Sales at Close.io, as our sales coach. 

So early on, try to pair up with the right advisors and investors in order to gain access to more than just money — the skills and intros we got proved invaluable for us even to this day. 

Finding the right marketing channel

I have seen startups spending thousands of dollars per month in PR early on. It’s a mistake. You need to focus on finding early adopters who are looking for your product, ideally in a well-defined niche. 

As Paul Graham says: “Build something 100 people love, not something 1 million people kind of like”. 

Now, let’s look into our own experience in more detail. 

One of our biggest advantages has been simply having a relevant brand and domain name. As of writing this article, the term “code interview” has 1,600+ monthly searches and we always rank in the top 3 results, largely because of our domain name. 

Also Read: Navigating a recession: How founders can protect revenue as funding dries up

Of course, some of this search volume consists of people looking for our brand name but the majority are likely interested in the topic — either as a candidate or an employer. 

Our domain name is also giving us an advantage in many related terms like “code interview tool” or “online coding interview tool” which are super relevant keywords for us. 

So, if possible, try to purchase a descriptive domain name and aim for search traffic with high-value and low competition. You may find SEO works a lot faster and cheaper than expected, especially when compared to channels like PR. 

Subscriptions are the holy grail

Although we started getting a consistent stream of users, monetisation was still difficult. 

What really moved the needle was the introduction of a pay-as-you-go model. We found out that many of our users are senior engineers just exploring different solutions. Committing to a monthly or annual subscription usually involved getting their finance and procurement teams on board which was a big barrier. 

The pay-as-you-go model (paying US$5 per interview) allowed customers to expand usage, often using their personal credit card, before getting management buy-in. This means they had a chance to integrate the product into their hiring flow before committing to a subscription. 

When the main users turn into power users, it gets much easier to get buy-in from other stakeholders.

The key lesson is that while subscriptions remain a good way to boost the value of your business and make it more predictable, you should explore other pricing models that may be a better fit for your company.

On hiring people

As we grew, the temptation to hire additional full-time employees was high. There are endless projects you want to start or recurring tasks to complete which, at a surface level, seem like great reasons to expand your team. 

And this is exactly what many tech companies did – leading to mass layoffs in 2022 due to overhiring throughout the pandemic. In order to keep overhead low and increase your chances of surviving an economic downturn, you should carefully plan the roles you truly need. 

Here’s a bit more from our experience: 

Instead of expanding our in-house team of 4, we relied on short-term contractors and external advisors to help guide our internal team. We hired generalist employees and specialised contractors to mentor us or execute directly. 

For example, we have some very senior engineers from companies like Microsoft and Meta on our advisory board helping our product team with issues like scaling and software architecture. We also have external consultants to help us with growth and SEO. I’ve personally had a sales coach and stay connected with peers and mentors to help with strategy. 

Here’s the rationale: a young cash-deprived startup can not afford to hire expensive experts for everything. Instead, hire high-energy generalists who are hungry for learning and have an “I can do anything” attitude. But make sure you connect them with the right experienced coaches.

This approach has helped us remain profitable and in a stable position even now – as other companies are scrambling to raise cash and keep up with high labour costs.

Our key lesson is this: hire generalist employees and specialist consultants to guide them in order to stay lean and profitable. 

The right mindset

I started my career very early, running my dad’s small retail shop in Karachi, Pakistan. This was a transformative experience as you have to focus on profitability and cash flow every single day. 

Also Read: Insights from a Singaporean founder’s journey to Silicon Valley

I found this very helpful when building a lean SaaS company. If you don’t want to rely on investors’ money every six months (and want to make fundraising easier), you need to obsess over profitability. 

This is not just related to costs. You should also focus on sales from day 1. Not only do you get to monetisation faster, but you will also naturally prioritise features users are willing to pay for and avoid wasting time on activities that don’t generate revenue. 

So obsess over cash flow and profitability – this is a key reason why many successful companies (bootstrapped or funded) were able to build for the long term and overcome adverse economic climates. 

Conclusion

It still feels like we have a lot to do (and learn) at CodeInterview. 

However, we have come a long way since starting in 2015. Looking back, we can see the decisions that helped us the most. In many cases, these lessons confirm common startup knowledge. But so often common knowledge is not common practice. 

I hope this article will serve as a gentle reminder to stay lean even when you have the opportunity to expand — both product and team-wise. 

And if you’re still early on in your journey, you may find things to repeat and mistakes to avoid, especially when starting a B2B SaaS company with little or no external investment. 

Lastly, if there’s one thing to remember here, it’s this: avoid the temptation to overspend when things are going well in your company. External events that will slow you down are practically inevitable so you have to be prepared to face these adversities.

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As a startup founder, achieving growth is critical to building a successful business. But equally important is achieving sustainability — building a business that can continue to grow and thrive over the long term. Balancing these two goals is a significant challenge that requires careful consideration and planning.

Prioritise customer acquisition and retention

By focusing on building a strong community of loyal customers who value your product or service, you can achieve sustainable growth over the long term. Companies like Airbnb have prioritised customer experience to achieve sustainable growth, building a strong community of hosts and guests who trust and value their service.

To achieve this, prioritise customer feedback and use it to improve your product or service. Engage with customers to understand their needs and pain points and use that information to improve customer satisfaction and loyalty.

Prioritise ethical business practices

Companies like Patagonia have prioritised ethical practices throughout their supply chain, from sourcing materials to manufacturing to customer service. This commitment to sustainability and ethical practices has helped the company build a strong reputation and attract loyal customers.

Develop a set of values that guide your business practices, and ensure that all employees and stakeholders are aligned with those values. Communicate those values to customers and stakeholders, and ensure that all business practices align with them.

Funding

Consider sustainable funding sources that align with your long-term goals. Companies like Warby Parker have used sustainable funding sources to achieve growth while maintaining business control. They raised funding from investors who shared their values and vision for the business and have been able to maintain their focus on sustainability and customer experience as they have grown.

Also Read: Exploring the evolving VC landscape: An insightful outlook on venture funding in 2023

Look for investors who share your values and vision for the business and prioritise long-term partnerships over short-term gains. Consider alternative funding sources such as crowdfunding, venture debt, or revenue-based financing that align with your long-term goals.

Product development

Companies like Slack have focused on solving a real problem for their customers — communication, and collaboration in the workplace. By providing a product that addresses a real need, the company has achieved rapid growth while focusing on sustainability and customer satisfaction.

Focus on identifying real problems your customers face, and develop products or services that address those problems meaningfully. Use customer feedback and data to drive product development decisions and ensure that all product features and enhancements align with your long-term goals.

Maintaining a balance between short-term and long-term goals

Companies like Shopify have balanced short-term growth goals with a long-term focus on sustainability and customer satisfaction. They have achieved rapid growth through strategic partnerships and acquisitions while focusing on building a sustainable business model that provides value to their customers.

Prioritise short-term goals that align with your long-term vision, and ensure that all decisions are made with a focus on short-term and long-term goals. Avoid making decisions that prioritise short-term gains over long-term sustainability, and be willing to make short-term sacrifices to achieve long-term success.

Balancing growth and sustainability is a critical challenge that all startup founders face. By prioritising customer acquisition and retention, ethical business practices, sustainable funding sources, product development that solves real problems, and maintaining a balance between short-term and long-term goals, founders can build sustainable businesses that achieve both rapid growth and long-term success.

By doing so, they can grow their companies in Southeast Asia while contributing to a more sustainable future.

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

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

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Singapore has overcome vast odds to ignite an entrepreneurial ecosystem and high-tech industries from the ground up in just a few decades.

The Little Red Dot’s skilled workforce, the capacity for long-term planning, dynamic government support, and international business environment have been critical drivers to shaping both its modern economy and a regional fundamental science powerhouse: NUS and NTU both maintain a tight grip on the top spots in academic global rankings.

But like so many competing nations, Singapore faces difficulties in reaching a critical size in frontier tech and supports its handful of early-stage gems to cross the maturation stage and the valley of death.

Characterised by a small home market, an early maturity with regards to deep science-driven venturing, and a geographic and cultural distance from top frontier tech-hubs such as San Francisco, Boston, or Tel Aviv, Singapore makes great efforts to attract the talent, technologies, and capital necessary to complete this emerging ecosystem.

A limited range of financial and venture-building instruments needed to attract a diverse investor base, experienced entrepreneurs, and top operating partners adds to the picture.

Global research institutions spend billions every year exploring, developing, and testing new technologies with the hope of bringing them to market. However, while basic science provides numerous avenues for promising ideas and expertise in fields like sustainability or healthcare, a range of structural, intellectual, and financial barriers make their maturation complex and broadly painful for founders.

Those include a scarcity of funding and talent compared with consumer tech, misaligned incentives, and risk appetites among researchers and investors alike. Consequently, many ventures flounder once they reach the maturation phase before market players — investors and corporations — are willing to engage.

Let’s face it. Frontier tech discoveries typically face 100:1 odds of making it through the first commercialisation steps. Expensive product maturation efforts, investor pressure, and protracted time frames have made traditional investors risk-averse.

This leaves vast funding gaps at an early stage that create both innovation and economic challenges. The problem is acute all over South-East Asia but resonates singularly in Singapore, where the ambitions are big, science is world-class, and frontier tech R&D is deliberately being nurtured so that its outcomes can be pillars of the future national economy.

To counteract this structural complexity and move to the next level, the frontier tech sector in Singapore needs to produce more promising research ventures that are geared towards commercialisation and international growth.

Also Read: Unleashing Singapore’s smart city potential: A gateway to limitless opportunities

In particular, recognising that the country will always remain a small and remote global platform with regard to the significant markets new frontier tech startups will likely target, a combination of targeted efforts could leverage the nation’s strengths and address some of its shortcomings.

Boosting the attractiveness for researchers and builders alike

There is no question that frontier tech maturation and productisation should be driven by specialists, with the aid of seasoned entrepreneurs and operating partners. But the innovation-to-productisation cycle only partly overlaps the process of venture creation.

While having a team of scientists leading the go-to-market is somehow prevalent in Singapore, academics often lack the experience and incentives required to competitively translate their work into commercial products.

Yes, they can learn. But the learning curve is generally steep, and it often has an irremediable impact on the productivity — and, down the road, the market timing and competitiveness — of the spinoff.

Organising execution ‘relay races’ and dynamically building the right team at the right time are paramount. Not all academics are made to be science entrepreneurs, but most can make substantial contributions to emerging startups. There is always a catch for the academics ready to cross the entrepreneurship Rubicon.

Let aside the fact that publishing academic research is still considered the ‘bread and butter’ of academic life —technology maturation is a demanding activity and hardly compatible — basic science in Singapore just provides more stability and funding visibility.

Even if the country had more frontier tech startups today, the reality is that the public sector would always be a black hole for talented research professionals, be they Singaporean or foreigners. To counterbalance this effect, official joint positions between universities and startups or venture builders can be tested.

In addition, introducing innovative incentive mechanisms that factor spinoff experiences in—e.g., new KPIs for academics seeking tenure — can entice more candidates to contribute to the ecosystem.

Second, the country faces difficulties attracting experienced frontier tech entrepreneurs, venture builders, and operating partners. Unfortunately, even highly generous expatriate packages to motivate the move may not convince this crowd. They are primarily incentivised to live and work in cities like San Francisco, Boston, or Tel Aviv, associated with massive work and learning opportunities, which in turn contribute to their personal branding, experience, and network building.

By contrast, Singapore’s small domestic market structurally offers fewer opportunities to build a world-class network. To counteract this, new immigration schemes targeting seasoned frontier tech entrepreneurs and operating partners would be a great addendum to Singapore’s gamut of immigration tools.

For example, applicants demonstrating a solid track record could be granted a 3-year work visa— yes, you need visibility to build frontier tech— associated with an ‘entrepreneurial grant’, i.e., the possibility to be financially supported to incubate Singapore-based projects in their field.

This status could even open the door to bringing additional talents to work on science-driven products (i.e., opportunistic pooling) and an expressway to raise early-stage capital. The program can be designed to incentivise this frontier tech AAA crowd to ignite and expand startups from Singapore and incorporate the associated expertise into the local entrepreneurial ecosystem.

Unlocking the private funding market

The post How to shape Singapore’s attractiveness in deep and frontier tech appeared first on e27.

While they hail from diverse backgrounds, countries and continents, they all share the same dream and vision: to build better rockets to benefit the whole civilisation.

They are now about to materialise their dream.

“We are at the onset of the new space race: one driven by the commercial enterprise as much as nation-states. We want to play a part here rather than spectate when others achieve great things in space,” Simon Gwozdz, Founder of Equatorial Space Systems, tells e27.

Equatorial Space, headquartered in Singapore, is a rocket propulsion and space launch startup. Its mission is to enable space access at greatly reduced risk, cost and environmental impact compared to incumbent solutions.

The venture was founded in 2017 by Gwozdz, Jamie Anderson, and Praveen G. A National University of Singapore (NUS) graduate, Gwozdz previously worked as a Motor Transport Operator at the Singapore Armed Forces. Anderson was Head of Rocket Propulsion at Gilmour Space Technologies in Queensland. At the same time, Praveen G worked at the Centre for Advanced 2D Materials at NUS, involving the application of graphene in composite materials.

Also Read: Singaporean rocket company Equatorial Space secures US$1.5M seed funding

Equatorial Space is currently working on its Dorado commercial-sounding rocket family to provide low-cost space access for science experiments, technology demonstrators and academic payloads.

A sounding rocket doesn’t achieve the velocity required to enter orbit and provides just a few minutes of exposure to the space environment and microgravity. Sounding rockets are typically used in the launch of science experiments that range from atmospheric and magnetospheric sample collection to deep space radiation monitoring.

According to Gwozdz, Dorado uses entirely new propulsion technologies to deliver superior performance, safety, and eco-friendliness. “Dorado is a responsive launcher designed to deliver small payloads into suborbital trajectory by mid-2024. It is designed to be 100 per cent explosives-free, and ships fully inert for easy deployment to any range in the world.”

Dorado is a hybrid rocket, which burns liquid oxidiser and solid fuel to produce thrust. Separating these two ingredients into separate states of matter eliminates the risk of accidental mixing and activation, making them safer than any other type of rocket.

Hybrids are very cost-effective because, unlike purely liquid-propelled rockets, only one liquid has to be delivered to the combustion chamber where the solid-state fuel already awaits. This reduces cost by two-thirds compared to similar-sized rockets.

“Historically, hybrid rockets have been limited by the performance and properties of the solid fuels available,” he says. This is the very problem Dorado solves using its proprietary formulation. This enables hybrid rockets to achieve performance similar to that of other rockets at a fraction of the cost and complexity.

“Dorado is the first such technology to find its way into commercial use, becoming the highest performing, most affordable and lowest risk vehicle of its type in the world,” he further shares.

Dorado comes in two versions: a single-stage and a two-stage configuration which will be flown in 2025.

The startup is also working on Volans, a family of modular, low-cost space launch vehicles designed for capacities of up to 500 kg to Low Earth Orbit. Volans will deliver payload directly to a clients’ chosen inclination at their own convenience and at a low cost.

Accessing test locations a daunting challenge

Being a part of a new ecosystem always comes with exciting opportunities. However, the challenges can be daunting.

“Developing a new propellant combination requires years of trial and error to bring it to operational readiness,” he states. “Our biggest challenge has always been accessing test locations. Our test locations are all overseas for practical reasons.”

The travel restrictions imposed during the COVID-19 crisis in Asia also took a heavy toll on Equatorial Space. “Asia Pacific saw some of the longest and toughest travel restrictions on earth. While our competitors in the US and Europe continued to advance, we narrowly averted closing down as we were running out of funding,” he shares.

“With the great help of our friends up north, we still managed to complete a proof-of-concept launch of our technology in Malaysia in December 2020. It was the first launch of a commercial prototype rocket in the region,” he adds. “I continued travelling to pursue funding and traction, and spent nearly two cumulative months in isolation over that time.”

How does Equatorial Space ensure the safety and reliability of its rocket launches, particularly for academic payloads and scientific experiments? “There’s no other way to eliminate any gremlins in the design, individual components and subsystems and the integrated vehicle than detecting them through a series of stringent tests, including the final and most exhilarating part — the qualification launch,” Gwozdz says.

While Dorado is critical for Equatorial Space, it has bigger goals in mind: to pave the way for orbital launch services for satellites, a booming industry set to triple in the next decade.

“Dorado will also serve an important function testing new components and technologies before their deployment in orbit onboard satellites and deliver an invaluable learning experience to the next generation of space systems engineers who use suborbital flights for training,” he explains.

Also Read: From aerospace engineer to building Google’s first int’l presence to cross-border investing

Late last month, Equatorial Space bagged US$1.5M in seed funding led by Elev8.VC, with participation from SEEDS Capital and Masik Enterprises. This funding will help the company to win partners.

“We have been approached by several companies, from Australia, Southeast Asia to Europe, for potential partnerships for our Dorado rockets. With the latest round of funding, we will be able to offer a reliable delivery timeframe to all potential buyers,” Gwozdz says.

For Gwozdz and the team, their ‘space’ journey has just begun. They are on a big mission: “We want to change the face of not just space launches but also create a foundation for a fairer and more equitable space economy for all humanity in the next decade,” he signs off.

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Echelon Asia Summit 2023 brings together APAC’s leading startups, corporates, policymakers, industry leaders, and investors to Singapore this June 14-15. Learn more and get tickets here. Echelon also features the TOP100 stage, where startups can pitch to 5000+ delegates, among other benefits like connecting with investors, visibility through the e27platform, and other prizes. Join TOP100 here.

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