A 2020 Global Startup Ecosystem Report shows that the Asia Pacific emerged as one of the major beneficiaries of democratisation, as the region has gone from having 20 per cent of the world’s top startup ecosystems in 2012 to 30 per cent this year. But after the pandemic hit the startups, they are struggling on two fronts: capital and demand.

Coronavirus will lead to the worst recession since the Great Depression, the International Monetary Fund has projected in a recent world economic outlook. Volatility has spiked, in some cases to levels last seen during the global financial crisis, amid the uncertainty about the economic impact of the pandemic.

For all those startup founders and leaders who are dealing with the uncertainty of the pandemic, one thing is clear: this is the time to pivot and not panic.

While many startups have seen tightened purse strings of the investor, are regulating tighter cashflows and optimising resources, they are also eyeing government subsidies and resilience packages closely. Unforeseen challenges have been thrown into this mix, where the way we used to do business in the past, has been forced to change.

Movement restrictions and remote working culture have led to a boom in digital businesses – digital payments, e-commerce and logistics, telehealth, and short-form content platforms like TikTok have seen a spike in adoption, opening lucrative doors for tech startups from such sectors. But what about other businesses that might not be relevant or are in a paused state due to the pandemic?

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

Especially the enterprise sector, for whom this can be a huge challenge. First, for any business, being in the pause state is an outright no-no. Though operations could come to a semi standstill, this is the time that these companies can spend on looking ahead and innovating for the new world order. This is an evident business imperative. Startups that can adapt and fine-tune their products to the market demand will see through this time.

From skyrocketing stocks to mass layoffs, B2B SaaS companies are having a wild ride. Software-as-a-service startups are not the ones grabbing the most eyeballs since digital banks and driverless cars tend to dominate the headlines. As large companies move towards being digital due to the coronavirus crisis, the SaaS companies like Zoom and Twilio have seen their valuations jump. The litmus test with the coronavirus crisis will be whether these B2B products or services are deemed as ‘essential’ or ‘good to have’.

For us at Sansan, after witnessing the highest IPO of 2019 at the Tokyo Stock Exchange we thought the road ahead for our regional expansion is clear. But in a short period, things changed. Like others, we are also having to wage this war with the pandemic, quickly navigate the shifts, and accelerate our innovation efforts.

The fact that we have been a startup has honed us long enough to deal with the new world order we will very soon see. I believe the same goes for many other startups as well. This is the time to use the nimbleness, your capability to innovate, operational flexibility, and fluidity to adapt to the market changes.

It is also essential to seek solutions to the pressing problems that your customers are facing. If you can successfully do that, you can turn your business around. That is what we are doing.

Also Read: How startups can tap community networks to pivot for growth amidst the pandemic

We provide a cloud-based contact management solution to our customers, which allows the company to visualise all the connections within their company. These records are fed into the Sansan interface by an employee by simply scanning the business card using the Sansan phone app.

In the advent of remote working though, how do these companies continue to maintain an accurate contact database? How can companies sell effectively remotely with sales pipelines softening, meetings cancelled and lengthening sales cycles? Also, with lockdowns, the business card culture is already fading away – do we need an alternate and if so, why? These are the questions that we are answering our customers.

One approach is to reshape our business priorities and look for opportunity areas, amidst the new reality that surrounds us.

The most recent Global State of Remote Work report by videoconferencing company Owl Labs, which polled more than 3,000 employees across six continents, found that Asia had 9% more companies that do not allow remote work than the global average. Now with coronavirus-imposed lockdowns, remote work, if possible, is being adopted by organisations across Asia, as the means for business continuity.

Across ASEAN, as remote working picks up, we are witnessing an unprecedented shift in business culture and rituals, and we want to be right at the centre of all of this, helping our customers adapt to this change. We are taking business card exchange online across the region and launching new functions like integration with Microsoft Teams to make it easier for people meeting remotely to exchange contact information.

Also Read: Why moving fast and pivoting is necessary for startups

The P-word has been dominating virtual boardroom discussions world over: in this case not ‘pandemic’ but’ productivity’. The use of productivity apps will play an even greater role in helping startups weather this storm.

Every crisis has a silver lining – you just need to look for it. With sales events, customer meetings, and industry conferences being cancelled and pushed, all businesses must approach this problem with a positive outlook and a three-pillared strategy: Reshaping for the new normal, looking inwards to re-energise and embracing digital communications.

There are many startups in SEA whom I see pivoting or re-energising themselves with the current times:

• Saas startups accelerate growth amid digitisation – A Barcelona based survey provider, Typeform said that their monthly recurring revenue has gone from 1% weekly growth pre-lockdown, to 6 per cent during quarantine. Work from home is too, driving their demand, and they’ve seen more usage across education and other sectors that weren’t using them so much.
• Manoeuvring through disruption in the events industry – Spurred by the coronavirus crisis and on-ground event cancellations, Eventhub, an event technology company based in Japan has released in April, EventHub online, which can hold large scale conferences and webinars, as the future business growth avenue.
• Logistics and food deliveries space heats up – The ride-hailing sector has seen emerging startups like the social carpooling app, Ryde and ride-hailing app TADA innovate by venturing into food delivery and courier services or accelerating their existing efforts in the space. TADA Fresh is offering drivers the means to keep earning and helping wet markets to keep a steady flow of income.
• Mapping newer growth areas under healthcare – Given COVID-19, the Singaporean company WhiteCoat, a telehealth company, part of MOH’s regulatory sandbox, has been attracting a lot of patients to take online video consultations for their health problems. According to media reports, their traffic has been increasing by 25% every week, encouraging the startup to plan for expansion to other markets outside Singapore over time.

Some 3D manufacturers are now firing up printers to create personal protective equipment for healthcare workers, and startups used to making phone booths for offices are now producing coronavirus testing booths for healthcare facilities.

An EY report from March found that more than three-quarters of executives said they were either re-evaluating or already taking steps to push through automation and digital transformation.

In short, we cannot go back to the way we were. Instead, we must become a more adaptable, learning organisation competing through speed and innovation to stay relevant. It can be helpful to apply a technology mindset when rethinking the business and the roles of people.

Every decision you make signals to people and customers whether you will emerge from this crisis as the winner. Remember to send the right signals.

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GoBear appoints Kent Huang as new CFO

The story: Singapore-based fintech startup GoBear announced that Kent Huang is set to join the company as CFO effective August 24, from fintech startup Funding Societies. He will be replacing outgoing GoBear CFO Frank Stevenaar.

Who is Kent Huang? He has held senior finance positions at companies such as GE, PayPal, and Intuit and most recently served as Group Head of Finance for APAC at Funding Societies.

What is GoBear? Starting off in Singapore in 2015, GoBear is a financial services “supermarket” that aims to empower its customers in improving their financial health. Available in seven markets in Asia

Woodstock Fund names Anderson Tan as Managing Partner

The story: Woodstock Fund announced the appointment of Anderson Tan to manage its Woodstock Capital Fund II.

Who is Anderson Tan? According to a press statement, as a serial investor and entrepreneur, Tan has a success rate of over 12.5 per cent for startup equity investing and over 30 per cent for investments in DLT and blockchain space.

As a partner at Philippine-based Launchgarage, he believes that decentralised and distributed technologies will be the soundest and most sought after technologies post-COVID-19. After a series of exits which includes companies such as Lyft, Pinterest, Docusign, Anaplan, Wave, Nanorep, Palantir, and Snapchat, Tan refocused his efforts to building and nurturing the blockchain and distributed ledger technology space. In this space, he has achieved success through popular projects such as Holochain, Zilliqa, Algorand, Tezos, Digitex, Bancor, Ontology, and Omisego.

What is Woodstock Fund? Founded in 2019, Woodstock Fund is a multi-asset global investment fund that is currently focused on investments in public Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT), Decentralised Finance & Tokenisation, and Web 3.0 protocols.

Singapore Games Association is officially launched

What is the Singapore Games Association (SGGA)? Supported by Enterprise Singapore (ESG), Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA), and the Singapore Tourism Board (STB), SGGA aims to develop and support a sustainable gaming and esports ecosystem locally while placing Singapore’s name on the world map.

What does it do? Initiatives include network, capacity development, and ecosystem.

What is next? It is set to host an Industry Day on August 7-8.

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Image Credit: GoBear

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In India, there is a growing problem of adults becoming financially dependent on their parents. As per a recent HSBC report, 55 per cent of parents still provide financial support to their adult children.

This practice is viewed as common because most adults in India only learn to become financially responsible in the later stages of their lives.

“When you are young, a lot of your decisions get taken by the parents which leads to a lot of problems, especially in India. For example, when you get your first job and start earning, you don’t know what to do with your salary. People also really think about financial planning only in their late 20’s,” said entrepreneur Bhagaban Behera.

“A 15-year-old today is quite independent and ambitious. He or she wants to follow his or her own career choices and make own decisions. He/she no longer wants to be under the parents and we feel that money plays a big role in this independence,” he added.

Behera sensed an opportunity here and he, along with Sriharsha Setty and Nakul Kelkar, started Walrus, a neobank that helps teenagers manage their pocket money.

The startup’s mission is to build a system where a child can get his/her financial independence at a very young age through savings and investment.

From banking to entrepreneurship

Behera realised the importance of good money management skills only after he switched his lucrative banking job to become an entrepreneur.

“I started my career as a banker in Singapore. Since I was earning considerably, I was not concerned about saving, investing and budgeting because there was enough money for everything,” he shared.

“When I made the shift to become a founder, my income naturally decreased and expenses increased, and there was a need to manage the business savings. So when I ran out of savings, it occurred to me that I didn’t plan well for it,” he said sharing the story behind the startup.

Also Read: Going big? Then Go e27 Pro.

Prior to Walrus, Behera has already been the startup founder of an AI-based Virtual Digital Assistant solutions called Monk.

How it works

Walrus operates as a payments platform where parents can add money on app for their children and put certain controls like spending limit. There are functionalities to set budgets. For example, a child can budget for his food and  transport.

Behera says that by setting budgets, children do not need to constantly go to their parents and ask them to buy them what they want.

“For example, if a child wants to buy a camera, he can save up for it and then plan to use the savings to purchase it within a certain period. When you are using cash, you don’t have an account of how much money you are spending. But when you are using a digital platform, you know how much money you spend and on what. This helps develop a habit of financial accountability,” he said.

Other than that the founders are also planning to add a feature in the future to help users invest in mutual funds.

Also Read: Riding the irony: Can Indonesian GO-JEK afford supporting LGBTQ rights in a country that condemns it?

But it does not want to be just a payment and banking app, which is why the founders have built a community around teens who, the founder terms, as “the aspirational children who want to go one mile more than the normal child”.

The app does this by organising events where they bring in successful investors, counsellors and entrepreneurs to help children benefit and build a perspective around becoming financially independent.

The teen-centred app even has an exclusive community page where it lets users create campaigns and designs for the application.

Behera recalls the idea of Monday quizzes which was suggested to them by the users and is now a popular feature within the app. By taking ideas from Gen Z’s themselves, Walrus manages to keep its customers more engaged.

Right now, the app is only available in India on the Google Play Store and plans to launch the iOS version in October this year.

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Image Credit: Walrus

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Updates: We added a comment by Grab spokesperson.

Singapore-based ride-hailing giant Grab is raising US$200 million from South Korean private equity firm Stic Investments Inc., according to a Bloomberg report.

Despite a layoff caused by the pandemic’s effect on the business, the funding round indicated that investors continue to pour in support to the tech giant.

Seoul-based investor Stic Investments Inc –whose portfolio companies also include Big Hit Entertainment, the company behind worldwide K-pop sensation BTS– has been planning its Southeast Asian expansion and has set aside US$100 million to invest in this region.

What Grab aims to do with the funding has not yet been revealed.

Also Read: Grab CEO announces lay-off of 360 employees, addresses COVID-19 impact to business

The company is currently valued at US$14.3 billion, according to CB Insights. Early this year, it also managed to raise more than US$850 million in funding from Japan’s Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group Inc. and TIS Inc.

This year’s pandemic has given the various impact on the Southeast Asian tech startup ecosystem. While several verticals are seeing a rise in popularity, such as health tech and e-commerce, others are finding themselves in a difficult position as investors become more careful.

An example of such company is fellow Southeast Asian unicorn Traveloka, which saw its valuation decreasing with its latest funding announcement, in what it called a “historic” drop. As a travel tech startup, the company is hit hard by the downturn faced by the travel and tourism industries in general, due to lockdown and border closure measures implemented in many countries.

A Grab spokesperson has declined to comment on the story.

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Image Credit: Grab

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East Ventures, is an early-stage venture fund focused on investments in Tokopedia, Traveloka, Ralali, Shopback, etc. Started in 2009 at the onset of digitalisation, the founding partners believed in the digital ecosystem and this guided their philosophy to invest in early-stages of a company. They rely on the idea “natural entrepreneurship” and feel a startup is a tipping point in this journey.

With over 170 investments in companies across Southeast Asia and Japan; they recently launched a new fund (their 8th) of US$88 million that is sector agnostic. In our recent webinar, we spoke to Melisa Irene, the first female partner at East Ventures to know more about them.

Irene joined the company in 2015 as an Associate and successfully closed multiple deals for the company. In such a short time of three years, Irene was the firm’s principal before finally promoted as the first female partner.

Also read: East Ventures forms new US$88M seed fund for startups weathering COVID-19, announces first close

Key takeaways

• East Ventures have invested in a lot of pre-seed-stage companies that have no revenue or traction. “Our philosophy is people first; then potential market. If the person is right and they have chosen the right industry market, he/she will be able to create the product to solve market problems,” said Irene.
• The key traits they look for in founders are integrity, self- awareness, and paradoxical traits (visionaries but have light ear; global knowledge with local wisdom)
• COVID has not necessarily affected growth trajectories. Because growth also depends on the sectors they are operating. Some are positively impacted; gaining traction faster; some negatively impacted by the government operating restriction. Growth at all cost model has already been challenged even before COVID.
• Exits for startups will still happen but the timeline to execute it might take longer.

Also read: Meet the VC: Click Ventures’ Carman Chan on the most exciting changes in Hong Kong startup scene today

• While investors are becoming more careful, the growth-stage investment might return back in 2021 as the market is still predicting a recovery post-vaccine.
• They usually go by referrals from the founder network for deal sourcing.
• Synergies among portfolio companies are of course preferred but it cannot be forced. There is ripe timing for effective partnerships. Examples are, many portfolio share offices at Cohive; or headhunting being helped by Ekrut; or collaboration between Warung Pintar and GrabKios; or how our SaaS solution is being used by most portfolio companies to support their back end operations: Xendit (payment), Mekari (Jurnal – accounting and Talenta-HR), Jojonomic (expense management).

Resources

Watch the full webinar via the recording below:

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When Burgreen co-founder Helga Angelina Tjahjadi moved to Amsterdam 10 years ago, she met both her future spouse and her co-founder Max Mandias.

Based in Jakarta, Burgreens is an organic healthy plant-based eatery specifically designed for the Asian food palette. Its customer base is mostly non-vegetarian: the more health-conscious omnivores and people who consciously choose to eat less meat due to health and environmental reasons.

Tjahjadi was passionate about vegan diet ever since she was 15 as it had helped her recover from severe chronic ailments while Max had switched to one due to environmental reasons.

The duo started testing out their plant-based recipes in Amsterdam. Later, Tjahjadi was convinced by her husband to move back to Indonesia and start the business from there.

During their initial days, the couple did everything from ideating the menu, making the burger patties, and serving food from Max’s home basement which they converted into a kitchen.

“We started the business, honestly, without a business plan in the first three years. It was really like taking a leap of faith to follow our passion,” Tjahjadi shares with e27.

Surely enough, it was only in the third year where the business took off. However, the road to success was not always smooth sailing.

Also Read: Bühler invests in Big Idea Ventures’s New Protein Fund; to invest in up to 100 plant- and cell-based firms

“We made some mistakes during our initial years. This was because growing too fast before placing new foundations cost us some painful consequences,” she explains the challenges they faced.

“When we started, we had to deal with problems such as fraud. And we learned a lot from the process which was to improve our finance, team and control systems and have a solid foundation.”

She recalls an incident where an employee took orders but did not input it into the system.

“Even though it was a small amount of money, he did it every day, mounting up to a year. So in the end, when we summed it up, it was quite a lot of money.”

However, despite the hurdles, the couple grew their business from a two-man team to a 150 people team with 10 outlets in Jakarta, Tangerang, and Bandung.

The company also recently managed to raise Pre Series A funding from Singapore-based VC firm Teja Ventures and investors from the Angel Investment Network (ANGIN).

She attributes her success to a combination of luck, hard work, and passion, advising fellow entrepreneurs to not be afraid of making mistakes and learning.

The Vegan Landscape

What Burgreens wants to do is to make healthy food mainstream by becoming more affordable.

“In Asian countries, there’s a lot of meat available, which makes them very affordable. But what we’re seeing is that if we want to focus on healthy plant-based eating; it’s not just about the taste but also the nutrition profile. So our focus is not just to mimic the taste and the texture but to also the nutrition profile, and offer people the same amount of protein that they would find in a regular chicken,” she elaborates.

Tjahjadi further outlines that initially, their business had a niche customer base. But the COVID-19 pandemic has helped them to gain more following as many reports identify meat markets as the source of the virus.

She says that there is a growing awareness from millennial groups on healthy food discussions, climate change and reduction of carbon footprint. With all of these factors taken into consideration, the trend is here to stay.

Also Read: She Loves Tech returns for the 6th time as a fully online event

While many Western brands have also recognised the opportunity of plant-based food in the Asian market, companies such as Beyond Meat and Impossible Meat have accelerated their entrance since the start of the pandemic.

What separates Burgreens from these brands is that it focuses specifically to create a plant-based diet that suits the Asian taste palette.

In Southeast Asia, the plant-based market is estimated to be worth US$14.5 billion by 2025, according to an exclusive report published by MarketsandMarkets.

“Retailers were focused on ensuring the supply of staple foods were available and were less concerned about stocking new plant-based foods. However, consumers have been increasingly demanding more plant-based foods as concerns about food safety and the virus have contributed toward a shift to more plant-based food options,” Andrew Ive, Founder of Big Idea Ventures tells foodingredientsfirst.

The movement has been catching a new force in markets that are only just beginning to hold on to a theme that is already popular in North American and European markets.

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Image Credit: Burgreens

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The startup paradox: Altruism juxtaposed with toxicity; You want to help every startup founder in the same boat and they want to help you back; It would be great if we could somehow bottle this altruism and provide the same level of support to our own teams. e27

Delivery app Line Man merges with Thai restaurant review platform Wongnai; The new entity has received US$110M from BRV Capital Management; The move is expected to help Line Man as it tussles with other regional players like Grab, gojek and foodpanda in the food delivery war. Bangkok Post

Meet the VC: In conversation with East Ventures’ first female partner, Melisa Irene; With over 170 investments in companies across SEA and Japan, it recently launched its new sector-agnostic fund worth US$88M; According to her, VCs are becoming more careful, and the growth-stage investment might return back in 2021 as the market is still predicting a recovery post-vaccine. e27 

Startup funding rounds in July: Survival was the name of this game; One of the most notable was Traveloka’s US$250M fundraise amidst COVID-19; New protein sector was a popular sector in July, with companies like Burgreens and Karana announcing their funding rounds. e27

Rachel Lau of RHL Ventures on the kind of thinking that allows innovation; She says the tech industry has changed tremendously over the last 3 years; Now, there’s a lot of emphasis on sustainability and margins; There’s a lot of maturity coming from investors and they are more involved in the ecosystem and building it, instead of just being invested in a company. e27 

This Singapore startup turns jackfruit into plant-based pork; Karana’s whole-plant pork is available shredded or minced, and it’s also catered for Asian recipes; Recently, plant-based products have come under fire for being unhealthy, highly-processed products from food industry executives and health experts. Vulcan Post

Visa joins Thailand Tourism Authority to expand ‘new normal’ digital payments; Visa will be working with financial institutions to support businesses partners in upgrading their payment acceptance service to card payments; According to a recent study, 3 in 5 Thais are forming cashless habits, preferring to pay with cards or through mobile applications over cash. Pattaya Mail

The roadblocks on the smartphone commerce journey; Security concerns and limited usability can be obstacles to buying via smartphones; But consumers use their phones to get an overview of available products; If the smartphone develops into a universal digital wallet, synergy and network effects will emerge that could accelerate the change. Digital Commerce 360

Why we need to stop glamourising startups with fancy labels and focus on real metrics; The unicorn status has reached such ubiquity that it’s hard to kill; The other labels seem to be either a response to global situations or a response to the shortcomings of unicorns; Whether you’re a startup unicorn or camel, your business is still being fuelled by the man-hours and ingenuity you put into the company. e27

HashStacs, Bursa Malaysia to develop blockchain platform for tracking investor holdings; This will also enable investors to automate the movement of funds and securities — increasing liquidity and asset servicing for the market; This is done by enabling the participant banks and the exchange to securely share a single data source that can be trusted.

Startups get insights into overcoming challenges; The world is undergoing a great transformation with four ‘bigs’ playing a leading role — Big Tech, Big Media, Big State and Big Health; Businesses need to abandon traditional, pre-COVID ways of doing things and adapt to the VUCA normal — volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity. HRM Asia Media

Being geek and gay in SEA: What startup ecosystem can do to foster diversity and inclusion; If you ask an LGBTQ individual in SEA about how they are being treated by society, the answer will vary depending on where they reside; While countries such as Thailand are perceived as more accepting, other countries leave a lot to be desired. e27

The unstoppable rise of fintech in SEA; A collaborative approach is endemic to the fintech industry; It is not a ‘winner takes all situation’ — the market is huge enough to accommodate partnerships, collaborations, to innovate with customer-centric products and carve out new areas of niche services. Tech Collective

The road to recurring revenue for hardware startups; Hardware has one advantage over software: customers understand there is a cost to your product; This allows hardware startups to generate revenue with their first iteration, but it’s unsustainable as the company grows and needs to innovate. TechCrunch

HR-tech firm Globalization Partners (GP) bares full-scale expansion into APAC; This expansion comes on the back of its US$150M funding round; The new APAC ops will support companies based in Asia that are looking to expand both within and outside the region; GP’ claims its solution enables any company to hire anyone, anywhere, in as little as 12 hours into every market around the globe. NewsBytes.ph

Filipino edutech startup touts AI-powered school management system; Its software analyses data that schools from K-12 to colleges can use in their planning and operations; It utilises smart algorithms and AI; The firm claims it has achieved its target to help over 25K students across 10 schools. NewsBytes.ph

Filipino fintech firm Bayad Center to push for more branches, online platforms; To date, it has set up 39K payment touchpoints around the country, with daily transactions of over 10K; Aside from bills payments, it also services domestic and international remittances, insurance sales, medical reimbursement, ferry and airline ticketing, ATM withdrawal, and loan disbursement. Newsbytes.ph

6 leading investors assess the remote-work startup landscape; VCs do not believe that the remote-work services and tooling world is solved; It would be simple to presume that a growing library of apps and services would lead to SaaS fatigue, but the VC group isn’t too worried about the concept. TechCrunch

 How brands in Asia are paving the way for a post-pandemic recovery; As the world navigates the unchartered territories, it is a time for learning, experimenting and adapting; Some brands have shown that when the status quo does not work, new approaches and strategies cannot only help them survive and recover, but also pay rich dividends in the future. Appier blog

Is Cambodia’s startup ecosystem ripe for a new era of growth?; 47% of its population is aged under 25; Combined with a mobile and internet penetration rate of 120% and 84% respectively, it is safe to say tech-savviness resides among the top traits of the population. e27

The post Ecosystem Roundup: Line Man-Wongnai merger bags US$110M; HashStacs to develop blockchain platform for tracking investor holdings appeared first on e27.

Grocery delivery battle in Vietnam: David versus Goliath?; The e-grocery war may witness another ‘David vs. Goliath’ story in the foreseeable future – with Loship being natural Davids, fighting against larger and more established competitors who seemingly have all the advantages of strength, size, and resources. e27

Sea Group surpasses DBS Group to emerge as Singapore’s most valuable listed firm; NYSE-listed Sea was valued at US$54.2B compared with DBS’s US$38.6.5B as of July 22; Sea managed to narrow its net loss to US$280.8M for Q1 from US$689.6M last year; Sea operates 3 main lines of business Garena, Shopee, SeaMoney. SGSME

‘Acceloration’: What happens after disruption; Acceloration is the accelerated collaboration phase that occurs after the initial disruption phase; If we peel the layers of the onion deeper, we find many examples of leading companies that, although looking like disruptors in the first instance, are actually not; Instead, they are accelorators. e27

How to build customer trust even amidst a recession; Loyal customers are more likely to stay with your brand regardless of changing market rules and operational conditions during the lockdown; The loyal audience is a self-fuelling organism that generates increasingly more returning customers. e27

‘We’re imagining a world where any commerce can happen just by phone conversation’: iKala CEO Sega Cheng; He hopes iKala commerce can handle all channels, social platforms, stores, all kinds of e-commerce platforms you have in your hand; “That’s the direction that we’re going”. e27

Indonesian fashion e-commerce platform Sorabel to shut down by end-July; In Feb, it shuttered its Philippines unit Yabel; Sorabel has so far raised US$27M in four rounds from Gobi, Golden Equator, etc.; The firm had achieved break-even and was on its way to be profitable. e27

Hiip secures bridge funding led by Vulpes Special Opportunities Fund; The Singapore-based influencer platform plans to take advantage of potential acquisition opportunities that have arisen as a result of COVID-19; Hiip claims to be helping 500 brands to connect and work with more than 10K social influencers based on Big Data and AI. e27

Is ethical hacking the next big thing in the talent market?; Organisations are starting to place more emphasis and investment on cyber security by hiring more ethical hackers; They are highly sought-after and receive attractive renumeration which can go as high as US$81K annually. HRM Asia

Startup investments in SEA nearly double despite COVID-19; As per a DealStreetAsia data, the value of fundraising deals rose 91% y-o-y to US$2.7B; The number of transactions climbed 59% to 184 for April-June quarter, up from 116 in the same period last year. Nikkei Asian Review

HSBC, MDEC ink MOU to drive digital leap for Malaysian businesses; They will identify targeted investments in tech, healthcare, electronics, manufacturing, education from China, the US, the UK, Japan; The agreement also includes providing advisory and other banking services to businesses. Bernama

How Malaysian companies can accelerate beyond basic digitalisation; The digital economy contributed 18.5% to the nation’s economy in 2018 with a CAGR of 8%; Majority of companies is skewed towards digitisation, in which 73% inferred digitalisation to be the use of IT system (30%), converting manual to digital (27%) and use of data (16%). Tech Collective

What Ant Group’s upcoming IPO means for the SEA startup ecosystem; For the region, this will trigger even tighter competitions among local e-payments companies, especially those with ties to Chinese tech giants; The group is making big moves in foreign markets such as Indonesia. e27

COVID-19 triggers supply chain and logistics transformation, but there are still gaps, says Marc Dragon of Reefknot Investments; He elaborates on how the recent US-China trade war has led industry players to consider how their businesses are being run. e27

ESG, NRF commit US$29M to National Innovation Challenges (NIC) in Singapore; Startups and firms will work on 28 challenge statements focusing primarily on solutions that leverage Big Data analytics, automation, sustainability and post-COVID-19 efforts. The Straits Times

How Machine Learning (ML) is changing mobile app development; With ML app development, companies are better able to realise and set their goals; Developers are able to recognise a quicker way to develop an app; Users find it easy to operate a ML-based app. Tech Collective

Does profit matter more than impact?; There are many entrepreneurs who may be crossing the money and ethics line without really knowing it; You don’t have to choose ethics or money; Just put ethics first, hold your intention to help others as front and centre, and create products or services that people love. e27

Building your startup’s customer advisory board (CAB); The idea here is that you’ve a feedback loop from customers back to your product where you build, you go get feedback, you iterate; CAB should consist of about 3-6 customers, who should be luminaries or forward thinkers in the market you are serving. TechCrunch

gojek’s VOD service GoPlay expands to interactive live-streaming service; It allows users to interact with one another, buy food and watch in better screen resolution within one platform; GoPlay Live would cover more events soon, including reality shows and online public movie screenings. The Jakarta Post

Japan’s credit card firm JCB partners with Shopee to offer online merchants enhanced payment options; It will be first implemented in Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam; A report found that the SEA internet economy soared to US$100B in 2019 after more than tripling in size over the previous 4 years. Vietnam News

Vietnam digital economy could be US$30B by 2025; The nation has 96.9M people but 145.8M mobile phone subscribers, 68.17M internet users, 65M social network users; A survey says Vietnam will obtain US$162M more in GDP in the next 20 years if it successfully carries out digital transformation. OpenGov

Ant Group unveils new blockchain brand AntChain; Currently, over 100M digital assets are uploaded onto AntChain on average every day; The group also unveiled an all-in-one workstation that reduces the deployment time of the company’s blockchain-based solutions by as much as 90%. FintechNews

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Stories of compelling company identities and innovative brands circulate the internet alongside a swarm of articles stressing the importance of culture. The reality of the matter is not at all embellished, as company culture when well-established, can frame the brand in a multitude of ways. 

The current fast-growing workforce is influencing just how important culture is across a variety of industries. The Millennial candidate especially finds this very important when seeking a new position.

It’s an enticing and captivating aspect of the business that when built and leveraged correctly, can attract the best talent for the job, influence employee retention, and even make the company more competitive in its niche. 

According to research conducted by Deloitte, 94 per cent of executives and 88 per cent of employees believe a distinct workplace culture is important to business success.

Furthermore, research from CultureIQ displays clearly that employees’ overall ratings of their company’s various qualities such as collaboration, work environment, and mission and value alignment are 20 per cent higher at companies with strong cultures. This is invaluable for the development of a motivated and engaged workforce.

Also Read: Is your new work-from-home culture stressing your employees?

The vision

Defining the goals to be accomplished within the company early on is the foundation of effective company culture. Your vision for the organisation needs to be captivating and unique to align the workforce.

It’s then vital to outline what needs to be accomplished and how your team can take the company from point A to point B. Identifying this journey is a major component in the creation of a collaborative workforce with a complete understanding of your business goals.

This understanding allows your HR or recruitment team to set specific goals while sourcing talent. It takes the recruitment process from a “minimum requirement” based approach to a more detailed campaign targeting a well-defined candidate profile.

Moreover, a solid company vision is a great way to show potential applicants the opportunities for growth that lie ahead, and the lengths to which the company goes for the employees’ professional growth.

For example, Google’s Tech Talks are one such display of company culture. The very concept is centred around professional growth, employee insights, and engagement beyond the scope of their operations. It plays an informative role, creating a community out of the workforce that collaborates and shares information that’s helpful for everyone’s professional growth. 

Also Read: 4 reasons why company culture is so important with startups

What does that say about Google? It says that this is a company where employees are encouraged to innovate, create, and to share without fear of being rejected or silenced. It says, to candidates and professionals in the industry, that Google stands behind employee contribution.

This is what makes the company culture dynamic.

Though employers traditionally prefer that employees behave in the same way set by management and executives, a dynamic business culture dictates the active contribution of each employee. Given the fact that company culture is most important internally, it stands to reason that its very foundation is built by the team.

Define, display and reward cultural values

For company culture to endure, there needs to be an established system that not only defines and displays culture values but also emphasises the elements that best define the brand.

For a dynamic company culture, the employee’s input and contribution are extremely important. Employers need to implement an approach where the workforce can come together and explore each other’s ideas and insights. 

Some companies create recurring events in which everyone’s perspective is shared and explored. The most brilliant of companies rely on this input to better orient the company and its strategy.

Also Read: Is this the end of the coworking culture?

But most importantly, it encourages positive behaviour within the organisation and shows potential candidates how your current workforce is given the opportunity to grow. This reinforces the values set in the vision.

Over time, as the culture itself becomes more solid, its nature begins to shape the brand. Google is renowned for how much it values its people, Apple for its appreciation of innovation, Amazon for its “Customers first” mantra, and Netflix for its “excellence, excellence, excellence” model.

These are just a few of the giants whose company culture and brand go hand in hand. For the everyday candidate, these values and goals are a promise of a better position, a better career, and an employer that shares the same values.

The right tech to foster change

At the very core of it, technology fosters the dynamic nature. Collaboration, communication, and efficiency are the hallmarks of a developing culture and significantly accelerate its growth. These aspects can be facilitated by implementing software and HR tech with an impact on all levels of the organisation.

Seeing as there is no single software to meet a company’s every need, a good strategy would be to build an internal ecosystem of interconnected software. Companies with this type of approach to technology are able to grow faster than competitors lacking the tools for digital change.

Not only that, tools that aid and support employees in their roles can save them valuable time and increase efficiency, giving the workforce the bandwidth to focus on innovative input for the next company event.

Also Read: Managing the millennial workforce over coffee and culture

The direct link between people and tech is the essence of the modern dynamic business environment. To that end, it’s a good idea to invest in tech that facilitates collaboration, communication and allows the team to contribute on different levels.

For example, implementing and normalising the use of tools such as Slack and Zoom for company-wide interaction and announcements gives the workforce a platform for open communication. Implementing HRMS software provides Human Resources with a way to navigate employee input. 

An applicant tracking system (ATS) is capable of automating such a large portion of the recruitment process and providing a range of features that help apply the dynamic company culture in the hunt for suitable candidates. 

Different tools serve different purposes. But one thing is certain, a company’s culture is as dynamic as the ecosystem it creates to simplify internal processes and encourage the characteristics needed to shape the brand.

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Innovation is the process of coming up with ideas that creates value for your customers. As the world becomes increasingly competitive, corporate innovation is crucial not only for a company to grow, but also to sustain itself as it allows companies to adopt new technologies, and keep up with the changes in the market.

So as an employee, how can you innovate within your company? Let’s take a look at Canva and what you learn from it.

Canva is an Australia-based collaborative platform startup designed to help people who aren’t graphic designers to create social media graphics, presentations, posters and more. The user growth of Canva has hit over 10 million users within five years, and it has recently closed a US$60 million funding round, bringing its valuation to US$6 billion.

Canva has managed to carve out a new market of users for itself, even when Adobe has dominated the design industry for years.

So how did Canva innovate to become so successful, and what can you do to adopt the learnings into innovation within the company?

Also Read: The Jay Kim Show with Canva Co-founder Cameron Adams

Increase the value of your company’s social currency

Let’s first understand what social currency is. It is the amount of influence that your users have on others as they share about your company. When consumers choose to share information, “a person ‘spends’ social currency and places their reputation on the line”.

Social currency has enabled Canva to achieve high user growth over the years, and the good news is that it is not something exclusive to Canva alone. Large companies can make use of social currency to increase and grow their users too.

It’s important for employees to understand that they all have a part to play in increasing the value of social currency for the company.

For example, if you are a front-line service staff within a company, being friendly and exuding warmth to users can increase affiliation, which is the sense of community among your customers, and thereby improving the value of your company’s social currency.

Even if you are holding higher-level management roles within the company, you can still innovate as there are other dimensions of social currency that can be more relevant to your role.

To harness the value of social currency within your company, you should first learn to understand what social currency is, figure out which dimensions are applicable to your role, and then find different ways to add value within your means.

Also Read: Australian graphic design startup Canva raises US$40M in Series C, secures unicorn status

No matter what role you hold within your company, there will be different ways within your scope of work in which you can add value to the company’s social currency.

Iterate but do it wisely

The iteration process is something that should be familiar to both startups or large companies. With iteration processes, companies strive to improve existing products and services to meet the changing needs of their consumers.

Simplicity and integration– these were two things that caught my attention when I was analysing the way Canva built its product.

Integrating features is something all huge corporates always do. Adding new features, new designs, new upgrades to their product portfolio … and the list goes on. Companies are always rushing to build everything that consumers ask for, or throw a variety of products (or options) in their faces for them to do so. But is it always necessary?

Iterating without a clear purpose and stuffing too many features into a product may result in feature fatigue and cause your users to disengage and stop using your product instead. As a result, iteration resulted in more harm than good for your company.

For example, If you are a product manager in the company, you should consider “offering a wider assortment of simpler products instead of all-purpose, feature-rich products”.

Also Read: With Mogees, the world becomes your musical canvas

This point also emphasises why integration worked well for Canva because while they integrate different processes together, they also ensure that there is the element of simplicity. In an increasingly complex world, consumers are overloaded with information and spoiled with choice.

Companies should make their consumer’s lives easier instead of making it confusing and harder for them to make decisions and complicating their way of life.

Whether you are on the management level or a regular employee within your company, if you do see that your company is innovating in a way that is making the user’s life harder, it’s best to sound out and feedback on the problems in any way that you can, so that your company can seek improvements and iteration in the right direction.

Don’t be too focused on the competition

Canva didn’t set its direction by focusing on trying to defeat Adobe or trying to disrupt the industry. They decided on a future that they wanted to see – one that focussed on solving a specific problem, and they set off to achieve it.

For large companies, they would have found the solution to the problem a long time ago, which was how they get to grow and scale in the first place.

But as they grow larger and more competitors come into the market, bigger companies start to be “at war” with each other and sometimes, they lose sight of the problem they wish to solve in the first place.

Also Read: Australian online design platform Canva raises US$15M in Series A

There are many large companies that have always been at war with each other. Famous examples include Apple Vs Samsung and Snapchat versus Instagram. Even recently, Apple’s new iOS 14 sparked a debate as many commented that its new interface layout is similar to that of Samsung phones.

At times, large companies may lose sight of their company’s mission and as they are too focused and too tied up with their competitor’s movements.

It is not a must to be able to provide the same functionalities and features as your competitors – unless extensive research and experimentation prove otherwise.

A recent example would be the shutting down of Lasso, Facebook’s version of Tik Tok which was launched back in 2018 in a bid to become more competitive in the social media industry. It is quite apparent that Facebook is trying ways and means to fight this new competitor and without much success.

The main takeaway here is to always remember to focus on the end-user and not the competitors. It’s okay to take a look and see what your competitors are doing but don’t be too focused on what they are doing and forget what you originally set out to achieve.

As you go about your roles within the company, use competitors as a reference point to improve but never as an idea generator. Focus on your own users, own problems and iterate accordingly.

Also Read: Canva wants to make design simple and collaborative

Enhance the emotional value of your product or service

Feeling confident, proud and accomplished. These were emotions that Canva users felt while using the platform and these emotions were real – not just marketing tools used by Canva to advertise themselves.

Canva enabled users to realise these emotions by creating a platform that is easy to use, made users comfortable in playing around with the features, and they made sure that the users can achieve the results that they want. All of these sparked positive emotions throughout the user journey.

Another point is that Canva doesn’t use emotional appeal actively as part of their marketing campaigns but rather, to showcase these emotions through storytelling during interviews such that it becomes more credible and trustworthy. They also understood that the users will naturally feel these emotions on their own, so there was no real need to use emotional marketing on their end.

On the other hand, large corporates love to use emotional play in marketing. A well-known example is Coca-Cola, where they portray the feeling of happiness in their campaigns.

One of their iconic campaigns that you may be familiar with is the ‘Open Happiness’ campaign, launched back in 2009. But as companies forcefully shove the emotional appeal into the face of consumers over and over again, the overuse of emotional appeal may actually harm your credibility instead.

Rodolfo Echeverria, the Global Vice President, Creative at The Coca-Cola Company, mentioned that “emotion had pervaded popular culture and advertising” and Coca-Cola eventually ditched their ‘Open Happiness’ campaign in place for ‘Taste the Feeling’ which reduces the focus on the emotional appeal in 2016.

Also Read: Australia’s latest US$31.1M series A fund Blackbird Ventures invests in collaborative online design platform Canva

As you innovate within the company, it is good to think about how you can enhance the emotional aspect of the company’s product or service without blatantly shoving the emotional appeal to your audience.

A good way to do so is by enhancing the positive emotions and eliminating the negative emotions during their user journey. To figure out what emotions are triggered at the different stages of a user’s journey, you can use different methods to do so such as by conducting user testing, research and feedback channels, face-to-face communication, and so on.

Figure out what is the best way to understand the user journey, and what you can do about it within your means to enhance emotional value for the users.

Also, large companies tend to spend lots of money to hire third-party agencies to conduct user research to find out about their sentiments and they do not come up with actionable that solve their user’s problems afterwards.

Companies should learn to make use of the results, listen to the user’s comments and come up with targeted solutions to the problems that surface as these data carry the emotional value that your product has on its users.

If you would have to take away just one lesson from this entire article, you should remember to always put the users first. By focusing on your users, you will be able to increase the value of the social currency, iterate wisely, not get side-tracked by the competition, and enhance emotional value. And that way, you can innovate in the right direction.

Also Read: The only advice VCs and founders in APAC need right now

Also, it may be challenging to act on every single lesson so do adapt and adjust these pointers according to your company’s needs. It’s time to use your efforts innovating and creating something that creates positive impact and growth.

As I end off, I hope that you will now be able to improve and innovate better within your company!

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