From a heartfelt realisation of a freelance designer to a spider-seller turned startup founder

Throughout the year, e27 has published contents about startups and the people who are behind it –and these stories are often deeply personal.

By digging into their soul, these authors are able to remind their readers about things that mattered. More importantly, they have also encouraged them to do something about it.

Our year-in-review piece this time is an homage to ten most inspiring and curiosity-tickling features published on our platform.

1. Gig workers are often under-represented and under-recognised, and we need to change that

This piece was written by ShengJie Teh, our community contributor who is also the founder of 3Clicks, a freelance service marketplace. Teh wrote in the feature that it is frustrating how under appreciated freelancers are, and took it upon himself to create the company.

This piece helps readers to see from the standpoint of a freelancer-turned-startup-founder that seeks to solve the problems he used to encounter. Teh found out that the problem these gig workers face mainly has to do with the limited access to more opportunities, against the traditional methods of “word of mouth” and matching agencies.

Without being overly promotional on the writer’s product, the article provides readers with the outlook of freelance work and ties it with how the platform he founded could help. It is a truly refreshing read and a great reminder of how potential the gig-working market is.

2. This company is on a mission to make Myanmar more economically inclusive

In this article, we got an insider look to Myanmar, a young startup ecosystem on the rise. The company being featured is Get with its two products Get Digital Store, which helps users to become micro-entrepreneurs with its point-of-sale (POS) machine, and Get Ride, a commission-free community-based ride-hailing network launched just within this month.

Also Read: The 10 most-read e27 Community articles of 2018

The article features Nyein Chan Soe Win, who has a vision for small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) as the backbone of his country. In this feature, Win spoke a lot about how Myanmar can rise in Southeast Asia’s startup scene, and one of the ways is by championing community and striving for inclusivity.

3. I tried out JDVirtual for grocery shopping. Fun and convenient, but is it worth the price?

Indonesian operation of Chinese e-commerce company JD launched its New Retail platform JDVirtual at Commuter Line train stations in Greater Jakarta Area, and Anisa Menur, our Senior Correspondent tried it out and wrote about it.

The service would enable Commuter Line passengers to buy grocery products, from toothpaste to soy sauce, by scanning QR codes on a type of board installed at the train stations. It was launched following the opening of its unmanned store JD.ID X at a shopping mall in North Jakarta.

In this feature, readers are taken along the journey of testing the concept of virtual store in the busy, metropolitan city of Jakarta by the writer. The writer then found out that the convenience of scanning QR code was not worth the shipping cost and waiting time for items that can be bought in the nearest convenient store directly.

4. Why “I’ll walk you out” was the most famous phrase in our early startup

The intriguing title won us over. This one was written by Sprout founder Patrick Gentry, who contributed this community article as a reminder for readers to not be a robot in a heavily-automated startup game, especially in the human relationship.

To do so, the writer highlighted the importance of building a culture that will truly distinguish a startup instead of offering perks. Gentry emphasised on the need in startup to have a direct, honest, personal [live!] communication.

So Gentry began to walk employees out at the end of the day, and everyone in Sprout followed suit. Employees would use these opportunities to get to know someone they didn’t directly work with, or deepen their friendship with someone they did.

Gentry said that this simple ritual helped his team build trust, share vision, and uncover issues in those critical early days of the company, something our reader can definitely learn from.

5. How a lazy student who caught and sold spiders transformed himself into a successful founder

The feature is not just another story of a school dropout finding startup glory. It is one of a young entrepreneur who caught an opportunity in a meticulous and appealing slide presentation he made as a student.

The story revolves around Eugene Cheng, who co-founded HighSpark, a strategic presentation consultancy and presentation training company, alongside his co-founder Kai Xin. This one is a celebration of a young, brilliant mind that will show the readers how opportunities are always around the corner if we dare enough to take the turn.

6. My startup journey: I would rather fail than regret

Kelvin Ang, founder of carreviwsncare.com or CarRC, contributed this piece and we loved it! Directly quoting Ang on this:

While my colleagues and friends were enjoying every weekend watching movies, hanging out, and getting drunk, I stayed at my house to work for my goals. There were countless times where I had grown tired and wanted to give up, but the desire to get out of becoming an employee was so strong and eventually pushed me to continue.

Ang was candid about taking a lonelier path to get to the desired lifestyle of having his own startup since 2012. He worked day job only to get home to his auto website business that’s now become CarRC, an all-car needs platform and has lived the life he’s always fought for.

7. How one woman is disrupting the entire manufacturing process in India

This is the one feature story that will grow wings on little girls’ back, or at least their parents who read the piece. Our Editor, Sainul Abudheen, interviewed Sonam Motwani, the founder of Rolling Cube, a custom manufacturing startup that would enable anyone to build customised personalised products at the ease of their desktop.

Motwani started off dreaming to become astronaut but found herself designing and building serious hardware products such as electric race cars in the college. She became passionate about hardware, and upon graduating in 2013, joined Procter & Gamble in its technology division, and later, joining a manufacturer sanitary napkins.

Seeing how manufacturing works up and close, Motwani began considering starting her own business in manufacturing industry that will address issues such as difficulty in accessing resources, lack of cost transparency, and underutilised capacity at manufacturers. Thus, Rolling Cube was born.

8. Stripe CTO David Singleton on what makes an effective developer team

One person who believes users should drive product development decisions is David Singleton, CTO at global e-payments infrastructure company Stripe. In his interview with Yon Heong Tung, our Senior Writer, Singleton said that it is important for developers to adopt and maintain a ‘user-first’ mindset.

This philosophy is enshrined in Stripe’s vision. From the very beginning, Stripe’s pitch to businesses is that it makes it easy for them to implement a payments infrastructure, by simply adding a few lines of code.

Also Read: Why e27 Academy is helping early stage startups build the right foundation through content, community, and connections

Being able to have a closer look at how one of the fastest growing fintech in the ecosystem run its company was the reason this one has to be on our top 10 list.

9. The extraordinary tale of a Filipino geek who swam against the odds in life

This one tells the story of Clark Urzo, one of the two entrepreneurs from Southeast Asia to win the Pioneer tournament —  a programme launched by Daniel Gross (whose startup Cue was acquired by Apple in 2013) and funded by Marc Andreessen and Stripe to discover the “lost Einsteins” of the world.

Talking with Urzo, who is now 23-year-old, readers would not expect how dark his childhood was. Urzo was selected for creating a new programming language, which enables anyone who can code to contribute to serious physics research (for example, simulations of gravitating systems). This opens up the field to the wondrous forces of Open Source and promotes open and accountable science along the way.

10. On this online dating platform, your looks don’t matter but your money does

If there is one irresistible thing about a story, it is when it combines romance and money into one piece. This features tells us about Malaysia-based Sugarbook, a platform where the members are sugar daddies/mommies, who are financially capable to support sugar babies financially and willing to share their wide influential network of friends and experiences.

In sugar dating, people of all genders form a relationship with a mutual understanding that all relationships are negotiable and that finances play a major role. This features helps us see sugar dating as just another form of business opportunity, which calls for a solution to solve customers’ pain points.

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e27 had a conversation with the co-founder of GoWabi, Samir Cherro, about how beauty and health industry can be adjusted to market needs

When it comes to concept, GoWabi certainly does not offer a new approach to online beauty and health service. But when it comes to expertise, GoWabi has got it covered.

“It’s about value that we offer to both the merchants and the customers. Our platform lets customers get the best deals from spa, salon, and even dental clinics around Thailand, and we give our merchants assistance to determine the deals that customers actually want,” said Samir Cherro, the company’s co-founder.

GoWabi brands itself as a one-stop destination for beauty needs, that will discover and book beauty and wellness services around the user.

GoWabi works by letting customers easily search for service by location and category, compare prices depending on the booking hour, read reviews and ratings by other customers, and receive cashbacks after each booking made on the platform

Personal pain

Cherro admitted that he sort of stumbled into the whole thing with GoWabi. “I was looking for barbers around me when I lived in Singapore, Jakarta, Manila, but with no luck. It was so difficult finding quality hairdressers at reasonable prices,” Cherro recalled.

From a mere idea, Cherro and other co-founders then launched the first platform that made salons, specifically barber services, available for people to book and make reservation. “From there, we saw a bigger problem and decided to expand. Two years ago we launched, and we moved more into beauty and spa service, and we were no longer niched only for barber service,” said Cherro.

Also Read: (Exclusive) Thai fintech startup Masii.com acquires events ticketing platform One Place

The co-founders later realized that, after Groupon and Ensogo shut down in Southeast Asia, there was an opportunity to fulfill the need of merchants who want to get more customers.

“We combined the two aspects and found the balance of providing ‘smarter discounts’ where we introduced offpeak pricing. That way customers can still enjoy discounts and merchants would get more customers filling their empty capacity, while receiving full prices on peak hours,” said Cherro

With the co-founders’ background at Ensogo and Lazada, the approach would be a sensible one to make.

Thailand is the beauty hub

Not only an attraction because of its white sandy beaches and international-famed gastronomy, Cherro reminded us why Thailand is an irresistible destination for tourists. “It’s where all the beauty and health sources are based in Southeast Asia, especially with spa and massage,” said Cherro.

It’s also one of the reasons why GoWabi is based in Thailand, because tourists actually came to Thailand for its spa treatment. “We have tourists from around the world coming to our platform and using our application to get deals on spa. Our inbound customers are the overseas tourists flocking to the country,” said Cherro.

Controls on customers

GoWabi’s customers are able to select date and time based on the real-time availability and pay online or cash using credit card, Alipay, or installment options.

GoWabi’s customers also can buy deals from e-commerces in Thailand such as Lazada or Shopee.

After that, once the booking and payment process is done, the customers can go to the shop and simply show their reservation email. The service provider will already have the booking information in their system.

By giving customers controls over when, where, and what treatment they can choose, GoWabi is able to curate a variety of promotions to offer its customers.

“It depends on certain hours when customers may get, for example, 30 per cent discount during lunch hours, and at peak hours, they must pay full price. It really plays on the various offers that customers can look into and choose from,” said Cherro.

So in this sense, their merchants also reap the benefits of giving only valuable things that customers are going to want to redeem.

“We try to find balance between discounts and capacity management” said Cherro, “From day one, we focused on providing value for our merchants, understanding their pain points and how we can help their business grow, to later be able to provide value to our users. In that way we have managed to keep our merchants on our platform (and keep them happy) rather than them seeing us as a quick customer acquisition channel for short time.”

“We offer a way for merchants to market their service in affordable ways and to ensure the message is delivered to the users. In the end everyone wants customers, and everyone is able to give discounts, we only need to be smarter in giving out discounts,” Cherro added.

Every booking made using GoWabi also will be rewarded with cashback to keep the customers engaged and coming back on using its service.

“Cashbacks that the customers collect can be redeemed for cash discount on any other 1,000 partners on our platform,” said Cherro.

On bringing expertises on board

When asked what differentiates GoWabi from other platforms offering similar services, Cherro began sharing about his and his co-founders collective background in the industry, especially in online marketplaces and e-commerce.

“Our team has strong background from various ecommerce and marketplace verticals in SEA, my co-founders previously worked at Ensogo Singapore and Zalora Thailand, I started early on in Lazada Philippines, Indonesia, and Thailand. I strongly believe our background and expertise in this industry has helped us bring GoWabi to where it is today,” said Cherro.

GoWabi announced their recent round of investment. In total they have managed to raised seven digits in USD. Their investors include Kasper Kragelund, 500 Tuktuks, and dtac, as claimed by Cherro.

“We believe this has made us the highest invested startup in beauty and salon booking space origined from SEA,” Cherro added, while highlighting their monthly growth.

In the upcoming quarters, just after securing the funding GoWabi has shared with us, the company plans to add more categories and to replicate the business model in new markets. “We want to improve our products for our merchants, basically providing a them more values and benefits by using our platform,” said Cherro.

Also Read: The state of European tech startup industry –and what Asia can learn from it

To date, GoWabi has expanded its footprint to nine major cities in Thailand and is now working with more than 1,000 beauty and wellness salons and boutiques, including internationally known brands and hotels such as: Benefit Cosmetics, Yves Rocher, Anastasia Beverly Hills, and Shangri-la.
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Image Credit: GoWabi

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A look back at 2018, the changes the year brought us, and some steps we plan for the coming year

It’s that time of the year, yes, Christmas Time!

While in some countries snowflakes are falling down and in other sun is shining in the sky, it is the perfect timing to wait for Santa, right?

Right, if you have been a good kid.

While this time of the year is a good moment to celebrate, share gifts, meet your loved ones and spend quality time together, at the same time it is a perfect moment to analyse 2018 and see how much change this year brought for you and plan next steps for 2019 personally and professionally.

For us, 2018 was a year of growth, and I am sure it was the same for you. Regardless of what has happened, change occurred. Inevitably, when change occurs, growth happens.

Now take a pen and write your 2019 resolutions, take time to think what would you like to accomplish in this new year? If you had the slightest idea to build a startup why postponing and not acting now?

Also read: e27 Academy gives you the personalised advice you need to build your startup

e27 is a good place to start with either by following our online content or by attending our tech events customized for early stage entrepreneurs.

This year marked the first edition of e27 Academy, a three-day learning programme designed to help aspiring and early-stage start-up founders build their companies and navigate the ecosystem., based on mentorship sessions, workshops and roundtable discussions created specially for them. We would like to focus on this event as the starting point for the “startup journey”. Following an intense bootcamp where the entrepreneurs will absorb a lot of new information, we would like to start the next year with Echelon Roadshow which is actually a pitching competition we organise across Asia, where the founders can put into practice what they have learned about the new market/setting up their own business.

Everything should have a finality during Echelon Asia Summit 2019, when worldwide recognised investors are coming together with VC firms, corporations or government representatives to meet the newest business ideas to invest in.

This is what we are planning for the next future and we would be delighted to have you as a new member into our community, to help you with the right tools to build your dream and to learn from your experience.

If you are based in Southeast Asia, even better, come meet us at our offices in Singapore or write us an email at engage@27.co to learn more about our own or our partner’s programs.

Happy New Year!

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Photo by Tim Gouw on Unsplash

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It helped me lose weight, save money and go on daily walks, but the plastic issue might be a killer

When MealPal first landed in Singapore, it was impossible to ignore. Startup enthusiast or not, the sheer volume of people handing out flyers, wearing signboards and performing office visits was remarkable.

For a grumpy hedgehog like myself, the natural reaction is always to reject a service that gets so aggressive with its marketing tactics.

However, I got into a lengthy conversation with a friend of mine and she convinced me to give it a go.

I gotta say, I love it.

It forces me to go on little lunchtime walks, I consistently discover new restaurants and it has helped me lose weight. Plus, it is a serious money-saver and picking food for the next day is fun.

I will break down these positive features of MealPal later in this article, but there is a gigantic elephant in the room that legitimately puts in question my willingness to renew the subscription:

During my one-month experiment with the platform, my plastic consumption significantly increased.

Part of this is living in Singapore, a country that consumes an enormous amount of plastic. Nearly ever takeaway food purchase is accompanied by a plastic carrier unless “no bag” is specifically requested.

I recently had a discussion with a local friend who was lamenting that the traditional bakeries create a culture clash. Typically, the bakery employee will wrap each piece of of food in a separate plastic bag, then put all of these in another larger bag meant for carrying. Also, most of the bread-based goodies include a small plastic covering meant to keep your hands clean while eating on the go.

So imagine, if you order a half-dozen items for the family, you have suddenly generated 13 individual plastic “bags”. Then multiply this by millions across Singapore, then remember that Singapore is a tiny, tiny country and suddenly it becomes obvious why the world has a plastic crisis.

The culture clash for her is that these workers mean no harm, and the good ones take pride in offering delicious, clean food full of great flavors.

I’ve asked them not to use the plastic and it just lead to a confusing back-and-forth whereby I was probably given a longer leash for “strange foreigner quirks”. My friend is Singaporean, and these bakeries becomes a push-pull between trying to use less plastic while being respectful to people who are not inherently doing anything wrong.

I bring up this story because it is how I feel when I use MealPal.

The selling point of the service is that you skip the lunch queue and, assuming a willingness to walk to the location, get on-demand food upon arrival.

Typically, restaurants cannot handle the MealPal group + their normal customers at the same time. So, they prepare the MealPal in the morning (which is one reason why users who cancel after 10:30am are still charged for the meal).

This is also why the only option is ‘takeaway’. No reasonable establishment could handle this much on-demand orders in one shot.

In Singapore, this means the food is delivered in a plastic container. Even if I want to bring my own bento box, the restaurant would just dump the food in my “sustainable alternative” and throw the plastic away.

I brought up the issue in a Telegram group and was given a few reasonable work-arounds:

• Call ahead and tell them you have a lunchbox.
• If they start preparing upon arrival, tell them you’d rather eat-in.
• If a restaurant prepares a non-plastic takeaway, make that a go-to restaurant for eating.

However, the best option is to stop using the service and go to the same places with the intention of eating in. Most places will give out washable cutlery which makes a big difference.

Also Read: (Exclusive) Thai fintech startup Masii.com acquires events ticketing platform One Place

Before publishing this article, I reached out to MealPal to get their advice about lowering plastic consumption while still enjoying the platform. I have not heard back.

Now, all of this being said, MealPal in a vacuum is awesome, and here is why.

Why MealPal rocks

It forces lunchtime walks

This perk comes first because, to me, it seems like the most unique feature of MealPal.

In the evening before ordering, it is the dish that is the star. That means the user is choosing food over location. There is a map to make sure you don’t accidentally walk 10 kilometres, but it also makes 4-5 blocks in either direction seem reasonable.

This is fantastic because the office life can lead to cabin fever and sometimes a short walk can help clarify problems/solutions.

It is great for weight loss (and, ironically, sustainability)

Yes, you read that right. The plastic is an issue, but MealPal has been transformational in my attempt to eat only vegetarian from Monday-Friday. So while my plastic consumption jumped, I have significantly cut down on the amount of meat I eat — which, they say, is very important for the planet.

MealPal has an assortment of filters. They range from meal size to cuisine preferences. During my month, I was able to choose only vegetarian foods, which can be remarkably difficult to find without direction.

This helped me avoid meat and shed a few KGs along the way.

It is more affordable

Typically, meals cost about S$7.50 (US$5.50) a pop. Yes, there is more affordable food in Singapore, but once you step outside of the hawker centers it becomes nearly impossible at that price point.

I found myself eating meals that normally cost S$12-$15 (US$8.75 – US$11) for about a five dollar discount.

But, besides that, it was the consistency of price that saved money. Rather than fluctuating between five dollars one day and 20 the other, I was able to stay at the same $7.50 every single day.
It’s fun!
As bizarre as it might sound, it is remarkably fun to pick out tomorrow’s meal. To be fair, I love food. I watch an absurd amount of cooking shows. I am pretty sure if media doesn’t work out for me I will go to culinary school and I tend to spend the majority of my exercise time brainstorming which restaurant to visit after the workout.

So, while I am probably the ideal target market, I am convinced other people will find it enjoyable. It’s like picking out a little mid-day treat.

Also Read: How founders in Asia can be students of the world

Overall, MealPal has been a pleasant surprise, and for anyone who has a solution to the plastic problem, feel free to comment below.

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Learning more about our neighboring countries in Asia Pacific does not need to be cumbersome, tedious, or expensive

With the exception of China, if you’re a founder in Asia Pacific, you need to prepare yourself for a tough reality: At some point, you’ll have to leave the relatively safe confines of your own market and test the waters in a foreign market. Overseas expansion in the region is tough. In preparation for this task, most entrepreneurs prepare themselves and their startups financially, operationally, and strategically, but they almost always overlook one factor: culture.

We tend to underestimate just how much culture will impact our carefully thought out business and operational plans. Localization, in short, is the key to regional success. Founders who operate in Asia Pacific must be students of the world, but we most often fall short of that ideal, often maintaining a very insular view of our own culture and neglecting to explore others.

Learning more about our neighboring countries in Asia Pacific does not need to be cumbersome, tedious, or expensive. Here are a few simple ways that regional founders can gain deeper insights into the markets they may very well one day need to expand into.

Go on an immersion trip

As much as it would be great to live in other Asian countries for months at a time, for most entrepreneurs this kind of immersion is unrealistic. A much more practical way to gain first-hand knowledge of other cultures is an immersion trip. Many organizations run such trips, gathering a group of entrepreneurs and business leaders for a multi-day tour of different cities in Asia.

What’s great about these immersion trips is that everything is already planned for you. The organizer will bring you to local business events, cultural exhibits, and everything in between, in order to help you learn through osmosis as much about the local business culture as possible. All you need to bring is a gung-ho attitude and some business cards.

Host a digital nomad

There are many people in Asia, particularly technical talent like web developers, who bounce around and work different jobs as they travel the region. While many companies tend to avoid such workers as they will only be with you for a short-time, some entrepreneurs are smartly targeting these digital nomads out.

Why would you want a digital nomad on your team? Hosting someone from a completely different culture can teach you as much about their own as they do yours. Though much of this education will occur organically in the course of getting to know them, you can even formalize some of this process: You can host a brown bag session where the digital nomad shares more about where he’s from and maybe even some of the places he’s traveled. Having sessions like these will also emphasize the importance of cultural education to your entire team.

Also read: 6 lessons on collaboration from Marvel’s Stan Lee

Build a global network

A common mistake that founders make is that entrepreneurs only ask for introductions to people they want to meet when they need them. This view is a very short-sighted one, and it’ll result in you having a very insular network. Most people will be where you’re from and resemble you.

The much more prudent choice is to ask people in your network for introductions to good people to know in other countries with no specific purpose in mind. Though this advice may seem counter-intuitive, it’ll be easier to get to know them as you’re not presenting or pitching anything, and you can even find ways to give value to them first.

Go off-the-beaten path

When you’re traveling to countries in the region, you should avoid touristy places. These will give you a glossed-over view of what it’s like to live in these markets, as this destinations are usually highly polished due to all the foreign tourists. Instead seek out destinations that are off-the-beaten path — these are the kind of spots that in some cases only locals may know.

Finding destinations off-the-beaten path may give you a more realistic view of how people live in that particular country, providing you with a deeper understanding of the country when you do choose to expand there.

These tips are of course only a starting point in every entrepreneur’s journey to become more global in their perspective. What’s important is that we acknowledge we must stand in the shoes of another in order to see how we can best serve them.

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e27 publishes relevant guest contributions from the community. Share your honest opinions and expert knowledge by submitting your content here.

Photo by Ben Duchac on Unsplash

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Toppr is an after-school learning app that uses NLP to solve K12 students’ doubts instantly, whereas DataTrained offers certificate course in Data Science

Toppr closes US$35M from Eight Roads, Helion, Kaizen PE, SAIF

Toppr, an after-school learning app for K12, has raised US$35 million in Series C funding in a round led by Eight Roads Ventures, Helion Ventures, Kaizen PE and SAIF Partners.

A  Datalteria Capital and Times Group’s strategic investment arm Brand Capital also participated in the round, which brings the total investment raises by the firm to date to US$58 million.

The company is using the fresh funding to fuel its adaptive platform.

Toppr caters to the individual learning styles of candidates and provides a wide K12 syllabus coverage with 1.5 million course combinations. It currently has over six million students on its platform and helps them prepare for various school, board, and competitive exams. It uses Natural Language Processing to solve student doubts instantly. It also uses Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, and Big Data to study student behaviour and create adaptive learning paths with infinite combinations. This ensures that every student has a personalised learning experience.

Toppr has a community of over 29,000 educators from across the country.

DataTrained raises US$1.7M to grow pan-India

Bangalore-based edtech startup DataTrained has raised INR12 crore (US$1.7 million) from a pool of three high net-worth individuals — Ashish Nadiadwala, Rupesh Sinha, and Mithlesh Thakur — in return for a stake of 20 per cent.

The company has earlier raised US$570,000 in 2016 from a New York-based Indian industrialist.

The company will use the fresh funding  for expanding to new geographies, strengthening its product and technology team. It is also looking to invest in a classroom-based Data Science PG course in the next year start in Noida.

Founded by Jatin Juneja in 2012, DataTrained Analytics Academy offers 50 courses conducted by 60 highly rated faculty members. DataTrained under offers 11 months certificate course in Data Science with an assurance of 100 per cent placement. The startup has tied up with more than 300 companies as hiring partners.

 

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