Hailed as Asian pioneer in online travel agency, Zuji was launched back in 2002 and now has gone out of business

Zuji, one of the first names to take a plunge in online travel agency business, has ceased operation. It is reported by Skift that Zuji failed to pay debt to airlines and missed out on renewing travel agency licenses in Singapore and Hong Kong, leading to its doom.

Zuji translates to “footprints” in Mandarin, and was in business since 2002. Singapore Tourism Board’s record shows that the company’s license has ceased since January 1, and January 9 according to the Commerce and Economic Development Bureau.

Also Read: Indonesian fashion e-commerce site Sale Stock changes its name to Sorabel

Earlier, it is reported, Zuji’s websites in both markets showed “New site coming soon” message all December. Now, it has returned error message.

There’s no report on the amount the company owed to airlines. A source from the Travel Industry Council in Hong Kong reported that it had received a total of US$32,000 worth of refunds case.

Zuji was a product of 16 Asia Pacific airlines that collaborate to create an online travel agency. The airlines include All Nippon Airways, Cathay Pacific Airways, China Airlines, EVA Airways, Garuda Indonesia, Hong Kong Dragon Airlines, Japan Air System, Japan Airlines, Malaysia Airlines, Northwest Airlines, Philippine Airlines, Qantas Airways, Royal Brunei Airlines, SilkAir, Singapore Airlines and United Airlines – and Travelocity who was owned by Sabre Corporation.

All 16 airlines are said to have invested from US$50 million to US$100 million (2001 figures). At that time, online travel was a boom in Asia and China, and these top airlines tried to find ways to cut distribution costs and bypass travel agencies.

At that time Zuji’s product development plans included what it said to be the “roll-out of a state-of-the-art” air booking engine and tours and packages capability. Scott Blume was the first CEO of the company in January 2003, and was optimistic about Zuji’s chance of leading the industry.

Also Read: Mobile-based food order-ahead startup Eatsy secures US$550K from East Ventures

However, the company ended up being acquired by Travelocity in 2006, sold to Webjet in 2013, who then sold it to Uriel Aviation Holdings in 2016.

The International Air Transport Association gave a confirmation that Zuji has been terminated from its billing and settlement plan, the clearing house for payments between travel agencies and airlines.
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Photo by Yeray Sánchez on Unsplash

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TOP100 this year is going to be much bigger and more competitive

This year, we’ll be expanding our TOP100 pitching competition to more countries outside of Southeast Asia , which includes Australia, Japan, Russia, and China.

Each year, our team travels to various countries in search of the most promising startups. Shortlisted startups will be invited to pitch their startups to a panel of judges in a private pitching competition and given scores based on the overall evaluation of their ideas, companies, and teams. The top hundred startups with the highest scores will be invited down to our flagship event, Echelon Asia Summit 2019, where they will have the opportunity to get exposure for their ideas, seek funding from investors, and find partners to expand their businesses.

Our Echelon Roadshow will also be taking place on the same day as TOP100. It involves a series of panel discussions, fireside chats and workshops held to educate the public on pressing topics in the startup scene. The results of TOP100 will also be announced during the roadshow, so we urge you to stay and connect with like-minded people and expand your network and opportunities.

Also read: Believe it or not, it is liftoff for #Echelon2019!

The final champion of Top100 will receive attractive prizes and most importantly, exposure and funding for their business, which is the most crucial factor for emerging startups. We will do the work and help to connect you with potential investors in your field.

There have been many success stories from our past TOP100 competitions, with over $120 million raised and over 600 investors involved, mainly from their participation in Echelon Asia Summit, the biggest tech startup conference which will be happening in May in Singapore this year.

So what are you waiting for? This is your chance to mingle with investors, gain publicity for your business, increase your knowledge of the tech startup ecosystem in the region and get the opportunity to partner and work with others!

If you think your idea is capable of making changes, challenge yourself in TOP100 — we trust that there will be nothing but benefits for you and your team.

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In an increasingly saturated and noisy space, how do you make your project stand out?

In a world where everything needs to be marketed blockchain projects are no exception. Today only 19 per cent of consumers are aware of the blockchain. A recent Gartner poll of Chief Information Officers (CIO) states as much as 77 per cent of the CIOs it surveyed indicated that their organization had “no interest in the technology and/or no action planned to investigate or develop it”.

Cryptocurrencies don’t fare much better in terms of adoption and usage. A whopping 87 per cent of those who are aware of Bitcoin have not used it in any way.

These challenges are why one of the most prevalent global trends is shifting from crowdsales that involve masses of small investors to working with funds and venture capital.

Creating buzz is what attracts investors, users and builds community. In this guide you will learn: — How to create highly visible posts and threads on social media networks — How to grab the attention of journalists and bloggers — The top digital marketing tools and services to bring targeted traffic to your posts and website and more.

Here’s the digital marketing secret sauce for your project to take off.

What you need to know before launching your digital marketing campaign

Which digital marketing tactics would make blockchain projects take off?

It may be difficult to get users to adopt your project. Blockchain technology and crypto are still in relative infancy compared to the Internet. But the more the target community knows about your project the more they will appreciate the coming benefits. But there has been a tightening of the “rules of the game”. Facebook, Twitter, IG, Google etc. ban ICO advertising.

Find your audience and target market

If you intend to raise most of the money for your project from private investors through a crowdsale then the community plays a key role.

On the other hand, if the project initially seeks to raise money from funds and institutional investors, then public relations will play a vital role.

Build a reputation in the community (or buy it)

You can engage with the community on platforms like BitcoinTalk with posts, questions and bumps. Additionally purchasing various positions on relevant blockchain-related websites is an effective tactic.

Create cool

Build the expectation that this is a cool project. Generate buzz and hype. What is the problem that you want to solve?

Community partner

Make your reputation trustless with proven value. There are some key elements of value for Altcoins. Speculation, Usage case, Community, Ecosystem, Team, Technology, Security Concerns. What are your elements of value?

Does it make sense to scale all out this out?

Craft a story

Develop a high quality whitepaper that includes your roadmap, tech and team woven into a compelling narrative and story. Make the user an integral part of your product roadmap.

Find a model that sells

For blockchain projects, you have to paint a picture of success that engages and excites your audience. Are you the next Uber, Berskshire Hathaway or Google? Explain this simply.

Also Read: FAQ: Paid-up capital and incorporating in Singapore

Blast your mentions
Get quality mentions of your product in the media, blogosphere and influencers. Then generate backlinks, buzz and hype in related community forums.

Advanced tactics for promotion

Strong press

Sending press releases to a great number of blockchain, crypto and business media. The stronger the media coverage, the more views you can expect to receive.

Thought leader

Choose an interesting topic and talk about it as the founder or leader of your project. Then approach current columnists of major media outlets and offer this content or commentary. In the case of a blockchain project, PR is not needed for traffic, but to build trust in the new company and product.

Court controversy

Can you create controversy by showing how your product disrupts an industry norm or kills a sacred cow? If you can passionately defend your position an audience of loyal followers can be your reward. Think classic themes like “Us against Them”, “David versus Goliath” or “New Innovation takes on Old Inefficiency”.

Top of mind

Keep reminding people about your blockchain project every 2–3 days. Use a mix of locations, techniques and platforms. AMAs on Reddit, bumps in BitcoinTalk, answering questions on Quora and a new release on ProductHunt grab attention.

Tools of the trade

Promotional campaigns require a great deal of effort, so plan in advance.

Airdrops.io

Many crypto companies distribute free coins to their communities to increase their project’s visibility, increase the circulating supply and stimulate trade. These free distributions are commonly known as “airdrops.”

Bountyhive.io

Bounties have become a valuable component of the marketing ecosystem for crypto and blockchain projects. They reward participants with tokens for following specific rules and completing simple social media tasks (joining their Telegram group, reposting on Twitter and such). The “bounty hunters” advance the goals of the ICO or STO.

Reddit

Reddit is a powerful platform for engaging an audience, research and driving traffic. Reddit Insight is an analytics suite for Reddit.com using their public API, combined with real-time data analysis and graphic visualizations of historical data.

Blog on your website

This is a great way to improve page rank, search results and connect with your audience. Blogging is still the most cost effective way to get users and customers to buy your product or service.

LinkedIn profiles

If your team and advisors do not have strong LinkedIn profiles then you’re waving a red flag at your audience. LinkedIn presents an cost-effective way to connect with users, investors and media professionals.

Email marketing

There is a marketing adage, “the money is in the list”. This applies for blockchain projects. Capture email addresses and mobile numbers so that you can build your audience and reach them directly for free.

Github.com

Want an excellent community to reach the tech audience? The GitHub platform can host your open source code for review and collaboration with million of developers from around the world. Git is a revision control system, a tool to manage your source code history. One of the biggest advantages of Git is its branching capabilities.

Popular communities

Here are some popular subreddits for blockchain and crypto communities:

1. Blockchain – 56, 000 subscribers
2. Bitcoin – 1,000,000 subscribers
3. Ethereum trader – 204,000 subscribers
4. Ethereum – 424,000 subscribers
5. Cryptocurrency – 787,000 subscribers
6. Altcoin – 79,000 subscribers
7. Cryptomarkets – 171,000 subscribers
8. Crypto ICO -72,400 subscribers
9. EOS blockchain – 62,000 subscribers
10. Bitcoin Beginners – 65,100 subscribers
11. BTC – 237,000 subscribers

How much money should you spend?

What will you be doing for the money you take?

Every blockchain project requires promotion since they want to take money, time or other resources from people. The industry is nascent and competitive. More often than not these ideas and products are still developing. There is no long track record of success in this space and the best marketing can separate winners from losers.

People ask how much should we spend or budget for marketing our blockchain, ICO or STO? The actual number will vary based on your specific situation. We advise that if you have a hard cap of US$10 million then you should spend a minimum ratio of 1 to 10 which equates to US$1 million on marketing. Be sure you consider your timeline, sentiment and the market landscape.

Also Read: How to logically decide when it’s time to pivot

The best teams use all of the marketing and public relations tools. This requires a great deal of effort, so you should plan the promotional campaign well in advance. Typically a minimum of 2–3 months is required for the preparation of announcements, images for social networks, columns and commentaries for the media and blogs.

Strategic marketing plan

Blockchain projects have many different aspects including financial, legal, political, technical and sociological. These very different viewpoints across numerous fields demand an effective digital marketing strategy.

Despite the level of interest in project questions often exist in terms of scalability, security, performance, adoption, utility and decentralization. The cost of effective marketing is increasing. Google, Facebook, and Chinese portals are banning a lot of things. Investors are warier and conversion rates are decreasing.

Summary

Every blockchain project requires promotion because they are developing and lack a final product.

To advance will require a lot of money or support from people internally or externally. How can you communicate to them that you are going to do something with these resources?

By definition, resources are always limited and competing with other potential use cases. Follow the steps indicated above to market your project.

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

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Marketing done right for a small-scale target audience

Starting a company is never easy. You can have the most innovative ideas that you see the potential of solving real consumer pain points whilst making a profit out of it. You may even know talented and passionate people to join your team and managed to pique the interest of financial backers. But once you mix these all together to create your product, the next step that comes is the hardest part: marketing it and validating it for the market.

When it comes to taking your product off-the-ground, oftentimes is not about you being the first to hit the market; it’s about how you put into your consumers mind how it can make a real and positive difference in their lives.

Tech start-ups today may not be aiming to take the world by storm and may have smaller target audiences, even at 1,000 users. But the lessons that can be learned from such strategies – on discovering the real-world benefits of said product or service; getting to know core target audiences; and understanding what competitors are doing – remain salient and should serve as key guidelines of how marketing, when done right, can help your innovative idea take off.

Step 1: Do a pilot

Meaningful innovation doesn’t just happen in a bubble. That may be so for the development process but when it comes to seeing if it’s useful for others, start-up founders should first gauge their market needs and the gap that is apparent.

But this doesn’t mean that they should go all-in and release their product to the market straight away. Not only would that be a poor utilisation of costs needed to create and distribute the products for the mass market, it can even garner you a reputation of releasing the product before it’s been market-tested and ready.

Therefore, a pilot marketing study in a closed setting should be done – a litmus paper test strategy that many tend to overlook. By preparing a pilot, obtaining data and extrapolating the insights gathered, start-ups can be placed more firmly in control to identify how consumers view the product. The study then helps them determine the most glaring drawbacks and help them improve on the product before releasing it to the world at large.

However, it’s important to note that even biggest companies prefer to not conduct these pilots alone. It’s vital that start-ups work with the enablers present in their ecosystem, and they could include personal networks, the deals made to finance the development of the products used for the study and even platforms to generate the content used for the pilot (i.e. market research agencies such as YouGov or tools such as SurveyMonkey to run research and polls).

Also read: Use these psychology-based marketing principles to attract, convince, and convert more people

Step 2: Identifying product-market fit to get the first 1,000 users

When your product is being eagerly snapped-up by consumers to the point that your supply can’t meet your demand – then you’ve achieved the holy grail of marketing that is the product-market fit. But getting there isn’t easy as many start-ups have failed by burning away their cash before understanding what customers really want. The next step would be finding the cohorts that may give higher life time value compared to the others. This is a valuable data set that goes into your marketing strategy

Having already tested the product at the pilot stage; this part is all about the consumer. The product ideally needs a strong value proposition and therefore be positioned as a solution to underserved need(s). But a company’s products are its babies, so it’s natural to be proud of them if we know it works, but others may not see it that way. It’s therefore crucial to first specify the product’s minimum viable feature set to help ensure that it can create at least some volume and inform you if it’s heading into the right direction.

The next part of this step is market segmentation. The way the product is positioned should not cater to the lowest common denominator of all your intended target audiences. Although different groups may share some similarities, people want to know how a product can help their specific needs ; They may not be interested if they see that the marketing messages have a catch-all nature and aren’t directly geared towards them.

Step 3: Iterate and pump those dollars!

After doing the steps above, often you’re still not ready to push your product out to the real market.

Even if you manage to get all the above right and your hypotheses have been confirmed, you still need to keep repeating the process – continually revising it as you learn, refine and tweak your product’s features to improve upon it until you know it’s fully-ready & get someone to pay for it eventually. B2B2C platform are tricky because the business models may take time to be created.

The process of iteration is something that is taken for granted by founders who are either impatient or have investors breathing down their necks to get their solutions market-ready.

In a tech environment that is being increasingly characterised by the need to introduce disruption, many start-ups are setting themselves up for failure if they keep cutting corners and leave stones unturned when ensuring their product is truly ready for the audiences they are aiming to reach out to.

Also read: Shoot for the moon: Identifying your target audience and developing a superb marketing plan

Conclusion

However, this three-step process is only a guideline. The idea is to get a minimum set of validation to gain confidence to move forward. It will not ensure success as failure can come in many guises and may be external to marketing per se. A good product does not need marketing, it marketing will give growth momentum. But what these steps can help companies with is how to make the use of limited resources more efficient and how to raise the start-up’s confidence before they attempt to take the world by storm. If there is no validation, then it’s probably time to fix the problems or make a pivot.

This may help start-ups who don’t achieve success at first as they are likelier to go home with more money in their pocket to try something else in the future; instead of putting all their eggs in one basket and setting themselves up for unrecoverable ruin.

Lastly, when you are staring at failure, I suggest that you listen to every advice you get, be confident to discard every ‘expert’ opinion but always follow your intuition.

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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 David Travis on Unsplash

The post How to acquire your first 1,000 loyal users and get them to actively use your product appeared first on e27.

In addition to talking about the best and worst things of working for a startup, Touchten’s Art Director dishes out advice for budding game designers

When Art Director Nilwafa Praduta recalled the time he first applied to work at Touchten, e27 found out he was one of the company’s earliest full-time employees.

“It’s fate!” he laughs.

“I was working in this Jogjakarta-based French game developer. Then I saw a vacancy from Touchten on Twitter … It was a walk-in interview that started at 8 PM that day, in Jakarta. When I saw the tweet, it was already 7 PM and I was still in Jogjakarta,” he explains.

It did not stop him from giving his best effort, though. Praduta did a quick research of Touchten’s company profile and portfolio, then he emailed CEO and Co-founder Anton Soeharyo. Apart from introducing himself, he also pitched a list of things he can help Touchten achieve if they hire him.

Three months and countless emails later, his perseverance paid off. Praduta joined the company and worked on the visual aspect of Touchten’s portfolio games such as Redhead Redemption, Ramen Celebrity, Teka Teki Saku, Ramen Chain, Cute Kill and Infinite Sky.

As an Art Director, his job description involves designing characters’ look, background, and even colouring and filters.

“Basically, anything that can be seen in the game,” he shares.

Here are the edited excerpts of our conversation with him:

Also Read: Indonesia scores fastest growth in Southeast Asia’s mobile gaming industry

What are the best and worst thing about working in a startup, especially one that works on game development?

I’ll begin with the worst: It’s hard to explain [your job] to your family. Especially to your in-laws! (laughs)

I mean, if you’re working in a bank, then they usually wouldn’t ask questions. But if you tell them that you work for a game developer, they’d be like, “There is a game developer? I thought only properties have developer! How do you create games? Do you draw them?”

Maybe the profession is just not mainstream yet, even though it is a unique one. I’m really passionate about games because it gives me chance to express myself artistically, combined with technical elements. Programmers with their left brain, artists with their right brain, working together to create something people can enjoy.

[Working in startup] also gives artistic freedom, compared to bigger game developer companies. Creativity is very tightly controlled there.

Also Read: Why is Israel, a land of startups, weak at gaming?

What’s the most memorable moment of working in a startup?

One time we gathered at Anton’s apartment, doing a heart-to-heart talk. We talked about all the things we want to achieve, and we realised that we have already achieved them. Right here, right now.

What Anton wanted, what Roki [Soeharyo, COO] wanted, what we all wanted … All of them were fulfilled. It’s very memorable.

Also Read: Kakao sees drop in gaming, advertising revenue in Q3 2015

Any pro-tip for aspiring game designers?

Create a good portfolio. There’s no need to include all of your works, only three or four of the best. Then search for experience from internships.

And play lots of games. As a game designer, you need to understand about lots of things. I initially wanted to be a movie director, and many of my inspirations come from there. [Watching/playing plenty film and games] helps me notice if something is off with a film or game.

You need to have real-life experience. If you’re into character designing, you can’t just stick into a particular style that you like, such as anime. Study all kinds of character designs — from classic Disney to European styles.

Because you’ll never know what your next game will be about. When we developed Ramen Chain, I tried to think of the things I love about food. One of them is how it looks, so we designed details such as boiling water and the glints of the food when it is served. We even thought of the noise we usually hear in restaurants.

Enjoy 2-for-1 tickets to Echelon Indonesia 2016 now. Do not miss out on Indonesia’s biggest international tech conference!

The post It’s difficult to explain my job to my in-laws: Touchten’s Nilwafa Praduta appeared first on e27.

We’re no longer worried about the intelligence of our computers, but rather whether we can tell the difference between AI and humans

Prelude: Is AI Getting More Human?

50 years ago, legendary director Stanley Kubrick introduced the world to HAL 9000, the autonomous killer A.I. from 2001: A Space Odyssey. Then, we laughed at the idea that we would ever live in a world where a computer could match or even exceed the intelligence of humans.

Today, we’re not laughing anymore. We now live in a world wherein A.I. is as ubiquitous in our daily lives as our reliance on the devices they power. No more are we worried about the intelligence of our computers– today, we’re worried that we won’t be able to tell the difference between A.I. and humans.

“The Uncanny Valley”

That’s the name given by Masahiro Mori in 1970 to the experience we feel when we see something that acts almost like a human but something about it just isn’t quite right. While this feeling is most common in the physical world – for say, when you see a robot that has a human face but inhuman expressions – this feeling can also come from computer animations or even conversations over the phone with an A.I bot.

Yet, our inquisitive nature demands progress and so, current and future research in A.I. means that computers will become ever smarter and A.I. ever more human-like. With this inevitability, if we humans cannot beat back that progress, we can work together to make A.I. human enough that we no longer experience the Uncanny Valley effect.

With that in mind, let’s take a look at the top trends to watch in humanizing A.I. in 2019.

Trend #1: The Adoption of AI In Our Daily Lives

2019 is the year of artificial intelligence. It may be only January but A.I. is starting the year with a splash. Once a buzzword used only exclusively by techies and technology first adopters, after the year that A.I. has had, 2019 is the year that A.I. really becomes a part of our every day lives.

Every year, people turn to the Las Vegas Consumer Electronics Show to see what are the trends and new products that companies are investing in. In 2019, A.I. is going to be a major theme at the CES, showcasing in a variety of products from home products to entertainment to even sports equipment.

And it is not just CES where A.I. is going to play a major role. From fighting hackers to protecting humanity from itself, this year is shaping out to be the year where A.I. moves from the laboratories of universities to becoming as common a system in your home as your bed, think I, Robot common.

Also read: How artificial intelligence is disrupting education

Trend #2: AI x Blockchain

The Internet of Things, Artificial Intelligence and blockchain are but some of the buzzwords that have been thrown around. If the past few years were being used to develop the technology behind those buzzwords, 2019 is the year when those technologies will converge and work with each other instead of operating in independent silos.

In as technologically reliant a world as we live in now, we generate massive amounts of data. On average, Internet users generate 2.5 quintillion bytes of data every day (that’s 2.5 billion billion bytes). In fact, we generate so much data that 90% of the world’s data was generated in the past two years alone!

To parse through all this data, scientists use a method called Deep Learning to train their Artificial Intelligence systems. The problem however, is that most of the time, we don’t know what our A.I. is doing most of the time. Here’s where we note the trend of converging the technologies between Artificial Intelligence and blockchain–there are already startups doing that– such as Connectome, which builds virtual human agents. If blockchain is used to keep an indelible record of processes made and we struggle to understand what A.I. do because we don’t have a good record of what they do, then using a GeneFlow system allows one to create that record.

GeneFlow refers to a method whereby the traceability of an A.I.’s learning and execution history is realized in a blockchain. When an A.I.’s processes an be reliably traced, it allows for a chain of accountability to emerge, making the A.I. more reliable because we can see into the blackbox that is its decision making process.

Also read: Want to make blockchain mainstream? Then speak the mainstream language

Trend #3: A.I. To Sound More Human

If there is one thing that makes HAL 9000 so incredibly scary, it’s that HAL talks to us like how we talk to each other.

In this famous movie scene, HAL says, “I’m sorry Dave, I’m afraid I can’t do that,” because HAL knows that Dave is trying to disconnect it. In 1968, to listen to a computer respond and rationalize their actions was only possible in the realm of science fiction. In 2019, it’s an every day occurrence. Siri and Alexa aren’t just names of people anymore. They’re the names we use when we want to activate our Apple, Amazon or Android assistants.

However, unlike the movie, our A.I. agents do not just randomly slap words together to make a sentence. They require massive data sets to be used to train them. That is why tech companies around the world are now hiring not just computer engineers but social scientists and linguists to help them make their A.I.’s more human. To make them more human, it is both about how they sound and how they feel. When you can make your A.I more human, not only do they help in banishing the Uncanny Valley effect, you make your A.I more trustworthy and relatable.

It is that feeling of relatability and trustworthiness that makes us want to use these A.I more. When we can relate to them, we become more comfortable speaking aloud to them. When we can rely on them like a secret invisible friend, we know that our secrets are safe (mostly).

To do that though, we need to have them start sounding more human. We’re all familiar with how robotic a, well, robot sounds. One of the most famous voices in the world, the late Stephen Hawking, used a voice synthesizer and that is one of the first images that come to mind when we think about a robotic voice.

Technology has improved to the point that our virtual human agents now sound human only because their voices were made from voice clips recorded by actual humans. However, because there are only so many clips that are available, additional phrases are often synthesized by cutting the relevant words and putting those clips together. Sometimes that method words, often, it’s a mess. However, we are near that goal of realistic sounding voice, as Google just recently showcased, and 2019 is that year when we cross the finish line.

Also read: China vs US: Who is winning the big artificial intelligence battle?

A.I., Humanized: Where Do We Go From Here?

From companies like Google and Amazon to the US Army, Artificial Intelligence is here to stay. As our smartphones get smarter, computers faster and virtual agents more common, 2019 will showcase the power of artificial intelligence like never before.

However, as the Uncanny Valley effect shows, there is a danger that if A.I. becomes more robotic and less human, regardless of how powerful a tool it becomes, we will still reject it. Technological convergence in making A.I. more accountable and creating A.I. that sounds and feels like a human will be a challenge.

And that makes 2019 all the more exciting.

—-

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

Photo by Rock’n Roll Monkey on Unsplash

The post AI is becoming more human, and 3 additional trends to watch in this space appeared first on e27.

Antler will showcase their first batch of companies after 5-months under their leadership on Jan 10, 2019 at the Google campus, hosted by the Google Cloud Startup in Singapore during Demo Day SG1.

On Episode 12 of The Story of You, we had Magnus Grimeland, CEO of Antler, a startup generator and an early stage VC.

Antler is unlike a regular accelerator because it helps connect founders to mentors and potential co-founders in the very early stages of building a company. It leverages a rigorous selection process and funding — only 3 per cent  of applicants are accepted into their programme — to find the best candidates.

Magnus leads a global team to develop the next generation of companies, while creating a pipeline for top talent to pursue a career in entrepreneurship and innovation.

62 founders from 22 countries have founded 29 companies. Antler has invested in 13 from their first cohort in 2018. The companies created are from a wide range of industries including real estate, e-sports, hiring, robotics and automation, and e-commerce.

Here are some highlights from our conversation with Magnus.

How is Antler distinctly different from other accelerators, especially in its approach to building companies?

We focus on talent first. We really believe that all great businesses are created by amazing co-founding teams and while other accelerators and VCs invest in companies and help them make it better, we bring in great talent from around the globe in specific teams and build companies. We then invest in the companies. That is very unique.

What makes a great entrepreneur?

There are 3 factors that make an amazing entrepreneur- this is what we are looking for.

• People who have a spike- this can be different for each person. It can be a
  personality trait or that you are deeply entrenched in a particular industry—everyone
  can have a spike or strength and if you know it, you can utilise it to make something
  amazing.
• Inner engine —  the drive that enables you to execute that comes from passion.
• Tenacity — on paper everything looks amazing but in real life, all these things are
  really hard. Everyone will hit walls, but the ones who succeed in something big are
  usually the ones who never give up achieving their dreams.

What’s are the biggest takeaways after the first batch of companies?

The first major learning is that it really works—that if you put a group of passionate people in a room committed to solving a problem, it will work.

Also Read:  The Story of You with Homage Co-founder and CEO Gillian Tee

We learned a lot about forming teams- some organically, some with input from our side. How you go deep on a business model and iterate that was another.

The only way to create a great product is to get something out there quickly for the customers to use.

What have you learned about Southeast Asia’s startup ecosystem?

The digitalisation of Southeast Asia is happening faster than almost anywhere else in the world—there are massive customer bases to reach in the region. We have seen giants like Go-Jek, Traveloka, Grab, Lazada emerge over the last few years.

The ecosystem has developed a lot and right now we are at this inflexion point where you have some great companies that have been built, the regulatory environment has really picked up. It has never been a better time to build something in this region. Now is the time.

What did you notice about this cohort and the way they approached building
companies?

We focus on building companies that solve problems, not follow trends. The issue with trends is people will build companies for the sake of technology. For example, when you saw the Blockchain trend, you saw a lot people trying to build businesses based on blockchain technology.

This is really the wrong way to build a business. For us, we ensure we tell the founders the way to do it is to find a real problem that needs to be solved and make people’s lives better. Then we help them get the right team to execute it and then it’s going to be an amazing business. Start with the problem.

What are the expansions plans globally?

We are a global company who want to build companies so we can support companies who want to expand globally. That’s why a global platform is better than a localised one. We will be able to execute out of Singapore. You have be international and bring in people who can add something to the company who are either stronger or have different spikes.

Also Read: The Story of You with Smartkarma CEO Raghav Kapoor

We are not creating a franchise, we are building a global partnership and all the partners coming in now as we expand into the US, Europe, Australia and Africa add amazing talent to support our companies.

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The Indonesia-based online investment app completed a US$2.1-million seed funding round co-led by SoftBank Ventures and few others notable investors

SoftBank, Y Combinator, Alpha JWC, Insignia Ventures Partners, and an undisclosed former Sequoia partner joined together to invest a total of US$2.1 million in Ajaib, a smart online investment application based in Indonesia, as reported by Deal Street Asia.

The funding is said to be used for product and engineering team improvements.

Ajaib just launched this month and was a product of Y Combinator (YC) startup incubator. It works by providing access to personal investment services for the country’s middle-class users.

Also Read: KinerjaPay signs agreement to receive US$200M investment from Wahana Group

“Our plan is to become the “Ant Financial of wealth management in Indonesia” by democratising access to personal investment services,” said Ajaib CEO and co-founder Anderson Sumarli.

The company has already obtained a license from the Indonesian Financial Services Authority (OJK) to run legally.

Ajaib will compete head-to-head with existing players in the online investment space like Bareksa that offers financial data, online tool, news, and analysis on investment and market.

With this latest investment coming from the country, Ajaib is added to the long list of startups backed by SoftBank Ventures which include the unicorn Tokopedia.

Also Read: Carput shifts roadside assistance into top gear with its on-demand service

Bearing its new name, SoftBank Ventures Asia said it is looking to expand its presence beyond Seoul, Beijing, San Francisco, and Tel Aviv by hiring investment professionals in Singapore and Shanghai.
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Image Credit: Ajaib

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The Vietnam-based startup raises funding led by CyberAgent Capital

Lifestyle tech startup from Vietnam WeFit announces that it’s just closed a pre-series A funding for US$1 million from CyberAgent Capital.

Joining the round is some other regional VCs, all done in this early January 2019.

Khoi Nguyen, the founder and CEO of WeFit shared that the investment will push the next phase of WeFit’s product development and also expand to a new market.

“We’re extremely excited to have cooperated with overseas venture capital firms. We believe this partnership will dramatically shorten the process of exploring the market and widening the accessibility of our services,” said Nguyen.

Also Read: Carput shifts roadside assistance into top gear with its on-demand service

Previously in 2017, the company also raised a seed round from ESP Capital and VIISA.

WeFit has been around since 2016 and claimed to be the pioneer in mobile-based user subscription packages for both fitness and beauty services across Vietnam’s two busiest cities, Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City. To date, the company said it has been available for booking over 1,000 locations.

WeFit works by allowing users to search and book for fitness and beauty sessions located nearby the users. WeFit partners with fitness centers and beauty spas to help them optimize operational costs and increase profit with WeFit’s traffic.

“According to a data provided by WHO, Vietnam is currently on the top rank of country with the lowest body mobilization over the world due to the lack of convenience and diversity of the solution for everybody. WeFit aims to solve this issue, we seek to bring people more benefits and less time-consuming services, as well as added value for commercial entities,” said the company’s official statement.

Currently, WeFit said that it serves more than 150,000 bookings every month.

“We believe WeFit will formulate a completely different behavior of beauty and health care in the near future,” Nguyen Manh Dung, Head of CyberAgent Capital in Vietnam and Thailand on its investment.

Also Read: KinerjaPay signs agreement to receive US$200M investment from Wahana Group

WeFit projects a million users in 2019 and plans to move forward with its Series A funding within 2019.
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Image Credit: WeFit

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Moving forward, CEO Toby Hoenisch will be the driving force behind the TenX company direction

Dr. Julian Hosp, the Co-Founder, President and public face of TenX, has left the company, as confirmed to e27. TenX said this was a mutual decision made by the executive team.

In an emotional video posted on YouTube, Hosp wished the team the best for the future.

“While we were planning [for] 2019 and beyond, it became clear to us as Founders that the only way forward is to mutually part ways. And that means, that I will be stepping down as the President of TenX. It was one of the hardest decisions of my life,” he said.

Hosp said he will be taking a few weeks off to move forward.

“I want to thank you all for the support, for having been there during good, during hard times; on this journey. There is definitely more to come,” he concluded.

Also Read: Fitness and beauty tech startup WeFit secures US$1M pre-Series A funding

As of today, TenX CEO Toby Hoenisch will be taking charge of the business direction.

“We have received a tremendous amount of community support under Julian’s leadership and want to thank him for paving the way towards further success for TenX in the years to come,” he said in a statement.

During his time, Hosp was positioned as the public face of TenX — taking press interviews, offering commentary and promoting the company to the general public.

However, he has recently come under scrutiny from the crypto blogosphere for his previous affiliation with Lyoness, an Austrian pyramid company.

TenX took to Reddit to acknowledge the past relationship, support Hosp and make the case that it had no bearing on TenX.

Also Read: Online investment startup Ajaib secures US$2.1M from SoftBank

TenX was founded in 2015 with the goal of building a credit/debit card which can be used offline and across various cryptocurrencies. In June of 2017, the Singapore-based startup raised US$80 million in a token sale to build the card. As of publishing, it has not been released.

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