The year has begun with a bang and we at e27 have been busy drafting our OKRs for the first quarter. With all the pivots and uncertainties that 2020 brought, we are ready to rock 2021. What about you?
To aid the planning process, we have a ton of guidance from our dear contributor community. From how startups can avoid legal hassles to what will the future of travel look like to the potential of the fintech industry in Taiwan to the need for diversity in developers; they have covered it all.
Enjoy reading some of our top picks and feel free to join the bandwagon. We are now seeking views and opinions from not just CEOs and founders but also mid- and entry- level office goers, students, academics, topic experts, consultants, and advisors.
From the investors’ desk: The future of work in Southeast Asia by Gavin Teo, General Partner at Altara Ventures
“As early stage venture investors in Southeast Asia, our team actively invests ahead of where technology is changing the future of work.
In 2020, three major employment-linked themes rapidly accelerated – remote work as the preferred way to collaborate, online commerce as the preferred way to shop for goods and on-demand meal, grocery and package delivery as the preferred way to purchase local services.
In fact, while Uber’s total rides decreased, the share of non-passenger trips in Q1 2020 increased in both absolute and relative terms by nine to 31 per cent compared to Q1 2019, according to data. In emerging markets, the same pattern emerged for gojek and Grab here in Southeast Asia and all signs point to these trends accelerating post-COVID-19.”
Life after COVID-19
How young and women developers are nurturing the tech ecosystem for a stronger post-COVID-19 world by Thye Yeow Bok who leads the Google Developers Relations Startup SEA
“Since the beginning of the year, 40 million people in Southeast Asia have connected to the internet for the first time (compared to 10 million in 2019 and 100 million between 2015 and 2019).
With technology providing vital access to online shopping, food, healthcare, education, finance and entertainment, more than one in every three digital service consumers started using a new type of online service due to COVID-19. Of those new digital consumers, nine out of 10 plan to keep using at least one digital service beyond the pandemic.
As the region recovers from COVID-19 and as more people turn online, developers and tech solutions are more important than ever. And as the tech infrastructure matures, the need for tech talent increases.”
How Vietnamese startups are braving the COVID-19 pandemic by Duyen Tran
“COVID-19 is here to stay in the foreseeable future. In Vietnam, in the second half of 2020, the number of newly infected cases continues to rise, sparking the third pandemic wave.
Yet again, the country has successfully put the outbreak under control with stringent measures from the government. Having reported only 1,451 COVID-19 cases and 35 deaths by the end of 2020, Vietnam is considered one of the world’s lesser impacted countries.
Plus, as the US-China trade war shows no sign of cooling down, foreign companies have found it pertinent to look for alternative markets. Vietnam, whose 2020 GDP growth among the world’s highest (2.91 per cent, according to the General Statistics Office of Vietnam), has become a logical choice in the eyes of investors.”
Here’s what the world of business travel will look like in 2021 by Amanda Tay
“As we start to see hope for a vaccination against the virus, local businesses in Singapore are hopeful that they will be able to recover from the recession period as most industries saw some improvement in the fourth quarter of the year as COVID-19 restrictions were eased.
Aside from business travel expenses which have inevitably been cut, business expense and travel management startup, Navisteps, saw a new work-from-home expense category emerge last year, where companies allocate a portion of their budget to supplement their employees’ work-from-home conditions, such as the purchase of laptops and web cameras, to boost employee work productivity.
The Singapore government has also supported citizens by allowing workers working from home to claim deduction against employment income for charges such as electricity and telecommunication expenses not reimbursed by employers.”
What’s happening in the world of fintech
Taiwan’s fintech ecosystem is such a laggard. What does its future hold? by Jun Wakabayashi, analyst at AppWorks Accelerator
“Certainly, when I dug into our own ecosystem, out of the 395 active startups that have passed through AppWorks Accelerator, only 15 or four per cent were found to be working on fintech, with only eight of them headquartered in Taiwan.
It’s rather a curious phenomenon. I’ve always heard about Taiwan’s lacking fintech capabilities, but at the same time, I also recognise that the country features many characteristics conducive to innovation around financial services, including a strong talent pool, high rates of internet/mobile penetration, widespread access to credit cards and bank accounts, and a generally higher willingness to pay and save compared to other, more emerging countries in the region.”
Why consumers’ financial wellness is the social responsibility of fintech players by CEO of Atlas Consolidated, David Fergusson
“This is true everywhere if you are already a member of the middle-class. But it also misses a critical point. The world’s middle-class is expanding, and by 2025, more of the middle-class will live within Asia than outside of it.
People sometimes forget that a financially healthy middle-class is the engine of prosperity. It provides the skilled labour, the capital, the consumer demand and the tax pool for any country. A country’s prosperity relies on a prosperous middle-class.
Yet today, middle class consumers are more than ever bombarded by companies tempting them to deplete their wealth for short term pleasures and to take on more debt, to the detriment of long-term financial health.”
Do you take cash? 3 hurdles to a cashless Singapore by Phil Pomford, GM at Worldpay from FIS
“With more than half of the population making some change to their payment methods amidst the pandemic, the cashless future that the fintech industry has been building towards seems more of a reality than ever.
However, the fact of the matter is that significant challenges remain, and I’ve highlighted below three reasons why we won’t be a completely cashless society anytime soon.”
Digital transformation
Making offline marketing cool again: How this AI startup is changing the future of B2C advertising by Deon Tan, an outreach executive at BLOCK71 Singapore
“For small businesses that focus mainly on offline sales in their shops, there is no practical way of collecting offline data to aid marketing efforts. Furthermore, even if businesses have the budget to employ third-party research companies to do the job, offline data collection is often time-consuming and labour-intensive.
Instead of spending huge amounts of money for market research, many small business owners opt to rely on memory and rough guesses to design their marketing campaigns.
I spoke to Jun Ting, serial entrepreneur and founder of Aimazing, who has been working to perfect the solution for the last five years.
Read the interview extract below to learn how Aimazing plans to make offline market amazing again!”
What new digital solutions mean for Indonesia’s F&B sector by business analyst at YCP Solidiance, Rafael Damar
“YCP Solidiance’s latest forecast estimate that F&B e-commerce sales would reach IDR15 trillion (US$1 billion) by 2024.
Given the prolonged COVID-19 social restrictions, those figures are highly achievable as the market has become heavily reliant on online delivery services to mitigate health and safety concerns. However, online delivery is only one piece of the puzzle in Indonesia’s digital F&B landscape.”
Startups need to know
What employers in Singapore need to do to boost employee experience in times of crisis by Ben Thompson, CEO and Founder, Employment Hero
“While working from home has several benefits – like more time with family and fewer hours spent commuting– the effects of the pandemic have triggered or exacerbated mental health issues, largely stemming from longer working hours and heavier workloads as the line between work and home diminishes.
Here’s what our survey results suggests employers can do more of in 2021 to enhance the employee experience and boost engagement:”
How to protect your early stage startup from unnecessary legal hassles by Izwan Zakaria; corporate, tech, venture, and startup lawyer
“It may be easier to get a business off the ground if your industry is not heavily regulated such as photography or management consulting services.
Whether you like it or not, gone were the days where you can “move fast and break things” like the old Silicon Valley mantra. So having a good lawyer involved while you’re sorting out your MVP may be a good idea so that you don’t get into trouble and may even get fined or penalised for breaking the law.”
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