As the dreary funding winter soars, at e27, we are kickstarting a new article series Line of Hire to understand an organisation’s culture and hiring philosophies to empower tech workers with the right growth tools to enable business owners to attract talent.

Latif Sim is Chief Strategy Officer at BeLive Technology, where he oversees its strategic growth and direction. Prior to BeLive Technology, he worked across both private and public sectors, as well as within the startup industry. A strategic thinker, he brings the structured management and approaches of the public sector to the dynamism of a startup.

Sim discusses BeLive’s culture and hiring philosophies in this candid interview.

What personality traits/qualities do you look for in potential employees?

I only have two criteria. First, someone who is willing to learn, unlearn and relearn. Knowledge evolves day to day and there could be situations which require us to unlearn past knowledge and relearn new ones. Second, is work ethics. You can’t teach that. Always strive to be the hardest worker in the room. When talent fails, hard work takes over.

How do they fit into your company culture? Tell us a little more about your company culture.

We are pretty easygoing as a small knitted team. Very transparent in communications and conversations and we have an open-door policy. We treat all colleagues as equals and we sit in the same common area during our day-to-day dealings. If you leave the ego at the door when you enter the office, you are pretty much set to fit in our culture.

How do you foster transparency and encourage achievement at BeLive Technology?

We have an open-door policy here at BeLive Technology. We are always in problem-solving mode and we see the bigger picture rather than who makes a mistake. If we make a mistake, we need to recognise it, find a solution, and move on. Life is too short to harp on past mistakes.

Also Read: No achievement is too small, no individual is too junior to be highlighted: Zelia Leong of PraisePal

Do you have a mental health policy? What does that look like?

Unfortunately, we don’t at the moment. But we recognise this to be a very important aspect of our organisation. We speak to our team members very frequently to check in on how they are doing and whether they need help. Our one-on-ones prove to be useful in that manner to identify issues that might surface.

WFH or WFO, or hybrid?

Hybrid. Nothing beats a f2f brainstorming session. It sparks human connections. But we recognise that tasks/meetings can be executed remotely.

How should a tech worker prepare for the funding winter?

Be conservative. Look at your cash flow, and manage expenses. If there is a need to make difficult decisions, it should be made. Being overly dependent on funding to run a business is not a viable long-term strategy.

How do you measure the performance of your employees?

At BeLive Technology, each of us has our own respective OKRs which we agree on at the start of each year. We review them quarterly to see where we have progressed and make adjustments/run new initiatives if there is a need to. We will do a complete evaluation at the end of the year. So in summary, performance planning, performance monitoring and performance evaluation.

Also Read: Innovation, teamwork, open communication are valued in our culture: Farida Charania of Empauwer

Will you consider a moderately skilled person with great honesty or a highly skilled person with less honesty when hiring?

Definitely the first one. My evaluation is based on these four letters: K-S-A-C. Knowledge, Skills, Attitude, Character. You can teach and learn the first two but the latter two, it is innate/natural.

Do you encourage ‘intrapreneurship’ in your organisation?

At BeLive Technology, we always tell the employees, this mothership is your baby. We are very open about this. Treat it as your own business. We are able to do that because we are a small team and we spend a lot of time with the team. If any ideas, initiatives, or observations that make us better, let’s throw them out and discuss them.

How do you support upskilling for your employees?

They are encouraged to upskill and learn new knowledge. We fund part of their learning courses. Our expectations of the team are very clear here. We learn something new every day.

The post Hard work takes over when talent fails: Latif Sim of BeLive Technology appeared first on e27.

Customer retention is a crucial factor in the success of any business, and it is especially important in the Philippines. In a country where customer service and personal relationships are highly valued, businesses that prioritise customer retention can build strong, loyal customer bases that drive revenue and growth.

Last March 8, a roundtable panel discussion titled “Retention Playbook Philippines: Orchestrating Campaigns for Different Customer Segments” was held in Manila to discuss trends and strategies surrounding customer retention in the Philippines. The program was held by CleverTap in collaboration with e27.

The panel included Victor Lim, Co-Founder of Kraver’s Canteen, Philippines’ leading ghost kitchen network; JC Medina, Head of Innovation at PalawanPay, the newest fintech product of Palawan Pawnshop / Palawan Express Pera Padala Group; Daryll Santillan, Head of Marketing at Booky, a deals and discoveries platform for meals; and Marc-Antoine Hager, SEA Regional VP, Sales at CleverTap.

At the event, different brands catering to different categories — food, dining, marketplace, and eWallets — discussed their playbook for maximising retention in the B2C markets.

Strategies for customer retention in the Philippines

The event further outlined a few case studies of successful customer retention and marketing strategies in the Philippines.

For marketplaces, the approach lies within bringing value to both the users and the merchants. Putting brands at the front and centre is the priority when dealing with retention. Given its double-sided markets, there’s also innovation in utilising the most effective channels in the Philippines. 

According to Santillan, “The top two would be email and SMS. Even though we’ve transitioned to a lot of messaging apps, [there is] a lot of the traffic and other brands in the messaging apps that make it difficult for us to stand out.”

In the case of Kraver’s Canteen, segmentation plays a big role in customer retention especially if you are competing with aggregators like Grab. There is a shift towards prioritising retention in their own platform and through real-time data found from customers, they found unsatisfied needs in each segment.

Also read: Ditch your other plans and Meetup with us in Singapore

For example, on-demand food aggregator services are not able to cater to those looking for affordable and practical healthy subscription meals, and this led to a subscription model that has been widely successful thus far. This goes similarly for other niche markets in food. 

Another thing to note when operating a ghost kitchen is to balance rotating the product to maintain freshness in brand offerings, and optimising the details so that margins would spike. This is where automation plays a role, as there is a lot of sophisticated data that have to be processed in a short amount of time.

PalawanPay has a similar strategy for transitioning customers from offline to online using granular data: “What we’re trying to do is we’re just looking at offline or real-world analogues and trying to apply it in digital, making it more efficient and making it more compelling.” 

Harnessing data to bolster customer retention

One of the key questions asked during the event is to share some techniques to regain previously loyal users of the platform that eventually stopped patronising one’s products and services. Santillan advises extracting these users’ data from the database and creating a targeted campaign based on their past behaviour. Sending targeted messages through SMS is effective in reactivating dormant users.

But what is the ideal number of notifications without annoying the users? Medina of PalawanPay believes from his experience, “When we first launched, the biggest mistake we made was not sending enough messages at this time, because we were too afraid that people might find it intrusive. That in itself is a really dangerous assumption. The best thing to do in retrospect is to sell to as many as you can at the start until you find what hits the sweet spot.”

Also read: Championing disaster tech, meet Prudence Foundation at Echelon!

Santillan further adds, “We run a couple of tests to find the sweet spot, experimenting on both the time of data and the number of users that would get push notifications. To check on the health of our relationships, we look at our click-through rates and whether they are dropping.”

For example, Booky’s team found that there is high traffic right before meals, so they typically send notifications in the morning and evening. “Those are like specific nudges and moments that you can capture to help remind the user that [our] promos exist and there are specials you can enjoy today.”

What factor drives retention aside from promos or savings?

Clear and actionable communication is something that customers appreciate. Relationships go hand in hand with data, therefore it is possible to create personalised experiences despite executing broad campaigns. Treating these as relationships that go beyond being transactional is crucial.

According to Medina, “We actually have to craft the storylines. Around each and every feature in our product roadmap is a story [which] serves as entertainment to the user. That’s actually worked really well for us. We try to entertain with each and every product.”

Also read: TOP100 Partner WebEngage pushes growth for SEA startups

Kraver’s Canteen’s Lim adds, “When we communicate ahead of time regarding a customer’s order, we eliminate the risk of complaints. We provide minute details ahead of time, [which is] something they appreciate.”

Customer retention is a critical factor in the success of businesses in the Philippines

With all this in mind, it is clear that by prioritising customer service, personalised communication, and loyalty programs, businesses can build strong relationships with customers and drive revenue through repeat business. While there are challenges to improving customer retention in the Philippines, the opportunities for growth and success make it an essential strategy for businesses looking to succeed in this dynamic market.

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

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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Signing the first contract for your startup can be an exciting milestone for a first-time founder. But contracts can get complicated, voluminous, and often confusing documents that founders would rather not deal with. 

As a startup lawyer, it is common to find out that the founders may even realise that they may not be in complete agreement on their initial terms.  Rather than taking the time needed to understand the terms or precisely agree on each term of the contract, they rather settle on vague descriptions of each party’s rights and obligations in the contract. 

Startups may also often be tempted to use legal templates, as they’re a cheaper alternative than hiring a startup lawyer and as far as the founder is concerned, it does the job to get the deal going.

This strategy works well in the short term which is to let parties “finalise” now and sign the contract. But when disputes arise, this initial approach to dealing with contracts usually results in time-consuming, expensive, embarrassing, and unpredictable litigation of the contract. 

Let’s take a look at several tips that you should know to avoid contract disputes for your startup.

Not putting things in writing

Relying on a “gentleman’s agreement” or a “handshake deal” is the usual excuse people make not to engage a startup lawyer to draft a contract. Under the law, a verbal or oral contract may be just as enforceable as a written contract.

However, considering that the parties may understand things differently from the meeting, it is often hard for the parties to agree on a default situation if one party ends up with a different view as to what was initially agreed upon. 

Under the law, all intellectual property (IP) created by a founder will not be automatically assigned until an assignment agreement is executed. In our experience, the IP created sometimes never gets transferred to the company at all and the company will be at risk if the founder decides to leave the venture without assigning the IP to the company. 

“Kick the can down the road” approach

In our experience, founders are eager to close off a deal and may rush to enter into a contract. It is easier to ignore and defer the important terms by ‘kicking the can down the road’ by persuading the other party to agree on the terms only in the future. As a founder, you may be delaying crucial discussions with the counterparty. 

Also Read: Going solo: Legal considerations for starting a small business in Singapore

Disputes may arise if the parties cannot agree to new prices in the next six months, or if the parties cannot come to a consensus on the new revised features when the terms are subjected to future review each calendar quarter. 

“Best effort” basis

Instead of agreeing on specific obligations and measurable metrics for objectively determining if a party has met those targets, first-time founders often prefer to use “best efforts”, “commercially reasonable efforts”, “reasonable efforts”, “good faith” or some other vague standards. 

The parties may not even know the differences between these phrases when asked. If the contract ends up in a court, you may be surprised to learn that judges usually may not agree on the meaning of these standards. The meanings will be interpreted differently depending on the court’s approach to interpreting the contract at the time. 

Vague terms

Founders tend to take definitions for granted. Similar to the previous ‘kick the can’ approach, they may instead hope the definition will somehow be mutually agreed upon in the future. For example, words such as “reasonable expenses”, “costs” and “standard quality” can mean differently to different people. 

In reality, it is impossible to agree on what will be the “standard” terms as they are not uniformly defined across the industry.  In the case of a dispute, even among expert witnesses.  

If you want your startup to get paid, your contract needs to have a series of deliverables described in the scope of work (SOW), a milestone table with deliverables, dates, and acceptance criteria (i.e. “When are we done?”), and a payment schedule is a good way to set everything out clearly.

Vague timeline

Rather than agree on a specific time period or date for certain tasks to be carried out, contracts that vaguely specify for tasks to be performed in a “timely manner”, “as soon as possible”, “as soon as practical” or “immediately” will invite problems in the future. It will be a better practice to state the number of days by which each party must get so and so done.

Conflicting terms

Let’s look at the duration clause inside a contract as an example. To avoid agreeing upfront on an agreed duration for the length of a contract, parties may end up entering into agreements specifying a one, two or three-year contract term and may even simultaneously agree that any party may terminate the agreement at any time upon written notice. When a party intends to terminate the contract, it may cause confusion as the terms are conflicted.

Excluding important terms from the contract

If it’s part of the agreement, you need to include it in the contract. A business plan or even a financial forecast spreadsheet can be incorporated into an agreement and is legally binding between you and the other parties (whether among shareholders or with new parties including investors). 

Legally speaking, if there is an agreement entered by the parties, any statement made during initial meetings or negotiations will not be binding as these statements will be presumed to have been superseded (by the new express terms set out in the contract). 

Also Read: All that you need to know about the term sheet for approaching investors

As a founder, you need to make sure that all terms of the deal are included in the contract or incorporate key documents by reference.

 Ambiguous terms 

If you’ve agreed to form a company with another Co-Founder, the founders’ agreement needs to address the agreed allocation for the set of duties and activities between the parties, the required time to get the tasks done, and the method for the work to be carried out and remedies (like forfeiture of the shares if the cofounder fails to perform the agreed set of tasks).

Unenforceable provisions

For a layperson, it may be hard to know if certain terms that you have included are known to be unenforceable under the law. If there is a dispute,  the judge will have to “figure it out” for the parties. The judge may either modify the relevant clause to make it enforceable or even decide that the clause is unenforceable. 

A non-compete clause may or may not be enforceable depending on the choice of governing law for the contract (for example, a non-compete is not enforceable in Malaysia). Even if is enforceable, it may be subject to the degree of reasonableness such as a geographical area or a duration for its enforcement may also need to be considered.

Overreliance on legal templates

When parties rely on a legal template, it can be tempting to just copy and paste or nowadays use the ‘online legal template generator’ by filling in the placeholders with your preferred terms. This ‘one size fits all’ may work a few times but not all the time as deals may end up getting complicated quickly. 

Don’t get me wrong. Legal templates are a huge help to get started but there is no such thing as a “standard” contract. There must be a good reason why every legal template you download will have a big legal disclaimer written in red bold letters.

Conclusion

Aside from the legal expenses, you will have to deal with the opportunity costs involved with the judicial process as there is an ambiguity when it comes to the litigation outcome as there is no way to predict how the court would interpret the contract. 

As a founder, you need to act prudently, don’t rush to close a deal for fear of “losing out’, and take the time needed to understand all the terms before signing a contract.

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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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Watching this weekend’s news that First Citizens has finally agreed to buy Silicon Valley Bank, I thought this may be a good opportunity to reflect on the past few weeks and add to the conversation that has dominated the fintech world as well as the high-tech companies and financial institutions that we serve.

The series of bank collapses this month starting with SVB had an undeniable ripple effect on our economy, sparking dialogue and debate over how a culture of risk management could have prevented its demise.

What are the options available for businesses to safely store funds in these economically volatile times? How can we ensure the accessibility of money to meet our day-to-day operations whether it’s paying for our suppliers, employees or other obligations?

As we reflect on the implications of this series of events, these are just some of the questions being asked. There is no perfect answer, but it’s clear that diversification of where companies keep their funds is key to ensuring that critical areas of money movement and business operations are not affected by a set of events like the ones this month.

Before I dive into some of the things that allow us at Nium to provide a different option for storing funds outside of the traditional banking system, I should note that SVB has not been a Nium shareholder, nor did we hold funds in their bank.

Also Read: How fintechs can contribute to the world’s sustainability goals

Nium’s B2B payments infrastructure enables seamless money movement around the world so businesses can scale, grow revenue and access new markets. Helping our customers stay focused on their vision, we protect them from the risk of financial volatility in the following ways:

Safeguarded funds in segregated customer accounts

Nium holds customer funds in safeguarded accounts, a segregated customer money account in compliance with regulatory guidelines. These funds held in a separate account cannot be accessed by Nium, creditors, banks, or third parties for any purpose.

Unlike banks that access customer funds and use them to invest in bonds and assets to earn a financial return, we ensure that their money is protected. Nium does not use customer money for investments, nor do we use it to give out loans. With our protection mechanisms and compliance policies in place, you have the peace of mind as a business that your funds are available to you for withdrawal or customer payouts, as per your discretion.

On-demand, real-time money movement

Our modern B2B global payments infrastructure sets businesses up for fast-tracked success. Nium’s expanding payout network supports 100 currencies and spans 190+ countries, 100 of which are in real-time. Funds can be disbursed to accounts, wallets, and cards and collected locally in 35 markets. Also, Nium’s growing card issuance business is already available in 34 countries.

Global payment network and rails

Considering the dangers of relying on a single bank that has come to light, Nium gives its customer access to a wide network of large global banks and payment rails. Helping maintain liquidity and ensure transactions flow smoothly, we modernize payments, within the country and cross-border, for proactive risk mitigation and financial stability of your business.

Also Read: Revolutionising fintech in Southeast Asia: AI and ML empower businesses with data

Multi-currency support and currency hedging

With payments becoming increasingly cross-border, exchange rate volatility can take an expensive toll on businesses pursuing global growth. Nium’s multi-currency support and foreign exchange solution with bulk currency conversion and rate locking feature help businesses manage risk, meanwhile using FX fluctuations to their advantage during dips.

Real-time fraud detection and prevention

Nium detects and blocks fraudulent activities with real-time prevention and payment flow monitoring, further strengthening the risk mitigation strategy for companies. Our global B2B payments infrastructure is tailored to address businesses’ distinct challenges, and we stay on top of the latest technology to safeguard customer funds from payment fraud.

In the end, the traditional bank system and its stability are extremely important both to the macro-economy as well as to Nium’s ability to support our customers through the partnerships that we build together with major banks and institutions around the world.

But diversification of risk means that companies should start looking at options that allow them to place money in a wide range of accounts that safeguard and move money quickly for the critical activities that require that level of speed and safety.

If this is something that could be impactful for you and your company, especially in this environment, we’d love to see if Nium can help!

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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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If Q1 2023 was the moment to prepare, then Q2 2023 is the moment to execute.

We spent the first three months of the year taking notes of the upcoming trends and changes in the Southeast Asian (SEA) tech startup ecosystem as we are gearing up for our big event of the year: Echelon Asia Summit 2023. As we have a better understanding of what our community members need, and how we can best fulfil them, we come up with a better course of action in April.

This month, we noticed plenty of opportunities to learn.

We strongly believe that experience is the best teacher there is. But the best part is that you do not have to wait until you go through something yourself to learn; you can even learn from others’ experiences. This is why we developed a new series called Failing to Succeed.

Failing to Succeed is meant for founders to share their failure stories with the startup community. Through these stories, we will get to see how these founders picked themselves up from the many failures in their entrepreneurial journey.

We debuted this series with an interview with Hungry Hub CEO Surasit Sachdev who speaks about why the first version of his restaurant reservation system failed.

“I could have validated the problem by creating a phone number and Facebook page and promoting the service. I could have added a tech element later to grow the business. With little to no investment, I could have found very early on that the problem I was trying to solve didn’t actually exist or wasn’t big enough to build a business around it,” he tells us.

Also Read: In March, we celebrated women in tech and returned to Myanmar

If you have failure stories that you would like to share for your fellow entrepreneurs to learn from, please do not hesitate to reach out to us at writers@e27.co.

Other valuable lessons come from those who had done it well.

As we go through back-to-back global crises, startups are facing greater pressure to become financially sustainable. Gone are the days when burning money is the way to go. This time, we are thinking in the long run. We are moving steadily to win the war, not just the battle.

AnyMind Group, who had recently listed their company in the Tokyo Stock Exchange following several delays, have stories to share.

In FY2022, AnyMind Group recorded an operating profit of JPY30 million (US$223,000). According to AnyMind Group Chief Commercial Officer and co-founder Otohiko Kozutsumi, there are factors that contribute to this progress.

“As you can see, all of these business models are B2B in nature … It means we don’t need to invest a lot for the user acquisitions like B2C business. So, the important point is that we have a strict budget control system. We should achieve the target, but at the same time, costs should also be maintained in quite a good way,” he says.

Human resource plays a key role in the company’s performance. To help meet internal KPIs, AnyMind Group invests in training their employees, so that they can increase productivity effectively. According to Kozutsumi, cost efficiency and productivity are the reasons why the company is able to achieve profitability without any layoffs.

Also Read: We tried to save the world in February. These are the 3 things we learned about it

April has come to an end. We see this as the month when we open our mind to learn from others’ mistakes and glories. This is the month when we secure a foundation to grow stronger.

We hit the ground, and we hit it running.

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Echelon Asia Summit 2023 is bringing together APAC’s leading startups, corporates, policymakers, industry leaders, and investors to Singapore this June 14-15. Learn more and get tickets here.

Image Credit: sporlab on Unsplash

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