One’s expertise and deliberate focus on one’s craft is actually the primary driver for success and not some crapshoot of a series of hacks

Often times when I attend a conference or a networking event I am surprised how many people operate at the periphery of the tech industry. Social media gurus, SEO ‘ninjas’, bloggers, etc. It’s a coterie of tech ‘club promoters.’ The hype men of the industry.

‘Hack your way to success.’ ‘Meet the right people.’ ‘Become a business superstar.’ They’ve found their silver bullet. They boast of building a passive income from a web business, all while traveling the world as the rest of us mortals are slaving away at our 9–5 jobs.

In a world where we are searching for silver bullets, these people seem to have amassed an arsenal of them. Moreover they’ve found audiences to sell their silver bullets to en masse.

The most blatant example of this are some of the disciples of the 4 Hour Work Week, by Tim Ferriss. The book itself is not really the issue. Ferriss indeed outlines some interesting tips on managing resources to get the highest ROI on your work. What is objectionable, however, is the hack-your-way-to-success mentality it has spawned in entrepreneurial circles.

It’s a mindset that is antithetical to everything I know about entrepreneurship. A mindset that I see when I hear people talk about having an amazing idea that they want to farm out to a young college student who can code or outsourcing development of a product to a cheap dev house. It’s a mindset that assumes entrepreneurship is a series of networking events and fundraising meetings, or even some silver-bullet business connection they have in lieu of a real distribution strategy. It’s taking a passive approach to a very difficult undertaking.

What is missed in all of this is the mindset of craftsmanship; that one’s expertise and deliberate focus on one’s craft is actually the primary driver for success and not some crapshoot of a series of hacks.

Also read: Advice for first-time startup CEOs

What happens on the periphery — whether it be the towel slapping we see on Twitter from tech celebrities or headline gossip out of TechCrunch — is not actually meaningful as a foundation of a business or a profession. Neither are the number of coffee meetings you have scheduled or the amount of networking meetings you attend. These things are tertiary at best, and at worst, just plain old distractions.

To be successful over the course of a career requires the application and accumulation of expertise. This assumes that for any given undertaking you either provide expertise or you are just a bystander. It’s the experts that are the drivers—an expertise that is gained from a curiosity, and a mindset of treating one’s craft very seriously.

A startup is by nature a crash course in developing expertise. What makes startups unique is the sheer dearth of resources. This dearth of resources forces founders to rapidly adapt their skills to meet the demands of the project.

‘I didn’t know how to do x, so I just had to figure it out.’ This is what I regularly hear from successful founders, whereas ‘I couldn’t find someone to do X, so I had to reconsider whether to pursue it at all’ is a common refrain from unsuccessful founders.

If you step up to the challenge, you’ll realize that the startup is nothing more than a teacher. It in fact is a great teacher for no other reason than it demands the accumulation of knowledge quickly for the startup to survive.

A technical founder, whose experience may relegate her or him to a specialist role in a large company, for example, has to adapt and take on more expertise in adjacent technical areas. There simply aren’t the human resources to hand off these tasks to another specialist.

Also read: Mindfulness matters: Why every entrepreneur should invest in good habits

This is true for taking on tasks in other domains, whether that be sales, finance, marketing, management or design. You have to take an interest in these domains because there is no one else to fill these roles in your early stage company.

It’s in exploring these unknown territories and facing the headwind of startup challenges that it becomes clear that the startup is merely a force of catalytic professional and character growth. With actual success of any given venture subject to the whim of outside forces, this growth is the non-monetary dividend that makes the experience priceless.

That is why the passive, 4-Hour Mindset is so self defeating. To lounge on a beach or travel the world and not actively engage in building your arsenal of expertise is professional malpractice.

It’s also not practical. No serious company has been created passively—the passive mindset that leads people to say “I’ve got a great idea. I’ll hire a team to build it out” or “I have this great connection who will drive sales,” while I play armchair visionary. Startup graveyards are full of visionaries without expertise or the proper skills to execute, for no other reason than ideas are not self executing, but are rather made into being by intense engagement by skilled operators.

Most importantly, to think of a business as a series of hacks and transactional relationships, you’ll never amass the expertise that your future self and future businesses need to succeed. Startups fail withstanding founder expertise, of course. It is certainly not sufficient to be an expert. However, expertise does make it possible to traverse the struggles of creating businesses over the course of a career. You’re not simply working on the idea in front of you, you’re building the knowledge to succeed at your next projects as well.

It is the expertise and the mindset of craftsmanship that allows someone like Elon Musk to jump from project to project and sector to sector with the knowledge of how to execute on the highest level problems. It’s not simply his ability to find interesting ideas. It’s his command of the domains of the business that allow him to execute the way he does. He is the epitome of interdisciplinary student of his businesses.

If you are to optimize for anything, optimize for the long term. Use the challenges of your business today to build mastery in your craft. There is no guarantee that any one venture will succeed, but that mastery will bend luck in your favor over the long course of your career.

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This article was first published on January 31, 2018.

Editor’s note: e27 publishes relevant guest contributions from the community. Share your honest opinions and expert knowledge by submitting your content here. This article originally appeared on Hackernoon.

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Blockchains can get through traditional revenue models towards a more secure and effective model

Blockchain technology is used for a variety of industries throughout the past few years. Where users might not expect to see it is within the music industry.

However, it has rapidly altered how contracts are negotiated, how music is distributed among platforms, and how musicians are likely to get paid for their work in the future.

No matter what musical trends occur, blockchain will be an inherent part of it over the coming decades.

Also Read: 3 of your most important assets may soon have tokenised counterparts in the Blockchain

Technology has always been integrated within the music industry, and the two have had a symbiotic relationship since electronic music made waves in the 80s and 90s.

It has not been until recently that it has dramatically affected how musicians distribute their works. Even with the ability to burn CDs, an original copy of an album had to be purchased before it could be shared with others.

Now with streaming, it is almost impossible to track how many copies of an album have been purchased, and it is difficult to determine which royalties are due to which artists. 

“Currently, the global music industry has an estimated US$2.5 billion worth of uncollected royalties. Dubbed the ‘royalty black box,’ there have been more than 46 million instances of unidentified songwriters or unknown copyright owner notice of intents (NOIs) filed with the US Copyright Office by streaming services since April 2016,” writes Michaela “Mickey” Shiloh for Entrepreneur. 

Because it is so difficult to track how many times a song has been listened to through a streaming platform, artists and their teams are left with inaccurate ideas of how popular their music is and how much monetary value can be attached.

Also Read:Can blockchains significantly improve e-commerce security?

Much of this has to do with the accuracy of the data that is being shared and the fact that most of these streaming platforms are closed systems.

Platforms do not want to share data with other platforms, and in some cases, the technology so far is not advanced enough to exchange information even if streaming companies agreed to it.

Artists have had to adjust to this in several ways. Many have asked for higher advances knowing that there is no proper way to track whether or not their albums have sold.

Even if this means paying the record label back from copies that have not been purchased, it offers artists a chance to integrate better into the music industry. Record companies have also been willing to dish out massive advances knowing that artists might not be able to pay them back.

This is where blockchain can revolutionise how artists are represented and how first record deals are made in the first place. Instead of relying solely on one company, streaming services could be seen as companies instead.

Blockchain allows a greater understanding of what is being streamed, by whom, and when, which allows for more information that can be used to identify whether or not an artist is succeeding. 

Also Read: Future of gold: asset stored on blockchains

It is predicted that this will change the purpose of record labels entirely making artists choose to work without representation because of the additional complications that come with advances and royalty agreements.

With blockchain, it is already possible to get a sense of how well an album or song is performing.

If artists can analyse data without the need for a middle man, they have the potential to gain direct sales instead of having to wait for advances to be paid off. 

“Blockchain, by nature, enables transparency over who owns copyrights over a digital work of art or song and further promotes digital payment through cryptocurrencies and smart contracts. If the music industry adopted a blockchain-focused distribution model, artists might not need the help of labels to secure royalties or brand partnerships,” writes Angel DeForge for Blockstreet HQ.

It could be a few years before blockchain technology can be officially used to bypass traditional record companies.

Since the conception of online streaming, artists and those in the industry have been affected due to the uncontrollable distribution of their intellectual material.

However, blockchain might be able to put a stop to illegal sharing and ultimately disrupting the industry.

If artists can adopt a blockchain-focused distribution model, working with a label would no longer be necessary. 

Overall, blockchain offers several advances that are likely to continue to transform the industry, from insights on popular music to understanding where music is being pirated.

Only time will tell how these changes will affect musicians and smaller record companies who are not able to afford the new tech immediately.

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What to avoid and what to focus on, key lessons from a first-time developer

Want to develop a mobile app? Developing the application is difficult, and getting it noticed on the app store is just as difficult.

In this post, I will be sharing my story of what I learnt from my first mobile app failure.

In my experience, most app developers are excited to launch their new mobile application which is more or less loaded with features.

My story begins a couple of years ago when I had my idea. I was pretty much convinced about the success of my idea. During the day of the app launch, I felt like Steve Jobs launching the new iPhone with everybody waiting in the queue to download my app. What a dream!

However, in reality, my application managed to receive only 5 app downloads out of which three were of my closest friends, who also managed to help me with the reviews.

Also Read: Unfazed by 3 failures, this 20-year-old is building a new startup, with some big names backing it

While my app launched on the app store, it was completely rejected by the audience.

Mistakes to avoid and lessons to remember

 

Excitement kills reality

Before you get excited about creating the app, you need to ensure that the idea is viable. It is like driving with a broken GPS. You can drive faster but can only to get to the wrong destination sooner.

So before I began racing, I decided to upgrade my GPS, which meant concocting a plan to bring it to the market successfully.

I learned that research is a crucial element. Research on the business requirement, competition in the market and above all research about numbers of apps with the same idea.

Any good product is based on the idea of resolving issues with a fresh approach. However, if your idea is already there in the market, you can always try to improvise or add more value to it.

If there is tough competition in the market then maintain focus on improving the basics or offer something unique.

Try to find problems around you, and create solutions within the app to resolve it.

Don’t be obsessed with creating a perfect product

Being a new app developer,  I worked to fit in as many features and plugins as possible, even if they were not required.

As a result, my application was not optimized and it ran sluggishly.

Another disadvantage was the increment in developing time, while I was attempting to make the perfect app, I was losing time.

So try to eliminate unwanted & unusual features and launch the app with only a few important ones. This is also known as the minimum viable product (MVP).

You can add more features in the updated version of the application. This method reduces development time and cost, also it ensures that you can execute your idea quickly.

Also Read: These 9 famous startup failures have a lesson for you

Design simply

The design of the app is crucial in making a good first impression on the user, therefore, the layout of the app should be crafted and designed carefully.

While everything on the internet is free and easily available, i.e. theme, design pattern, plugins, and so on. These free templates encourage app owners to create an application on their own.

With so many templates to choose from, how do you pick the best one?

Well, just look at some of the most popular apps on the market, for example, Uber, or Airbnb.  They all have a simple design with an easy to use UI. Try to make your design as simple as you can, remove all unusual graphics from design.

Identify the right audience

Creating a dream project without planning is like shooting in the dark. Before creating the app, first, it is essential to ask, Why?

Identifying relevant users always helps in creating features.

Usually, popular apps are always designed according to their target audience which is why they get attention from an early-stage. So try to identify whom you’re serving in future and jot down their needs.

If the application is crafted according to the users, it will gain traction and this may help you to monetise the app.

ASO (App Store Optimization) is oxygen

If your application does not perform well on the app store, App Store Optimisation (ASO) can turn your fortunes around.

ASO is similar to search engine optimisation (SEO), which helps to boost website rankings on the search engine, except this time it is for the app store.

In my personal experience, it is crucial that all newbie app owners should learn the basics of ASO and strive to implement it in the best possible way. Here are some basics of app store optimization. (trust me it works):

• Put a catchy keyword in the title.
• Add keywords in the description.
• Use attractive & appealing screenshots.
• Insert informative videos in the screenshots.
• Use the app Store analytics for audience behaviour
• Encourage positive reviews to users.
• Try to create a brand identity design (Icon, Color)

Also Read: How the world’s most successful founders approach failure

Final thoughts

By writing this post, I hope it helps every new app owner or someone who is planning to build an app and avoid making the same mistakes that I did.

One key takeaway for readers is that you should keep your eyes on core functionality or selling point of the app. Try to keep the design and functions of the app as simple as you can.

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Naluri offers therapeutics care combining behaviour science, data science, and digital design to provide structured health coaching and psychological support

Naluri, a Malaysia-based healthtech startup, has closed US$1.5 million in an oversubscribed pre-Series A round of funding, led by Global Founders Capital, a Berlin-based VC firm run by Rocket Internet Co-founder Oliver Samwer.

Stanford-StartX Fund, TH Capital, and private investors, including doctors as well as the startup’s existing investors, also participated, DealStreetAsia reported.

The money will help the firm plan its growth for the next 12 months. It will focus on expanding its user base, hiring senior staff, starting overseas teams, and to form partnerships with leading insurers, corporate employers, healthcare providers, and pharmaceutical companies.

Naluri was co-founded in 2017 by Azran Osman-Rani (CEO), who was the former chief of iflix Malaysia and AirAsia X Bhd, with medical doctors Jeremy Ting and Dr. Hariyati Shahrima.

The startup offers evidence-based health therapeutics digital care that combines behaviour science, data science, and digital design to intervene with patients or those at risk of diseases. With its software programs, it provides structured health coaching and psychological support for users to prevent, manage or treat a medical disorder or disease.

“We have seen about 60 per cent of our users achieve at least one clinically-significant health improvement that reduces the risks of diabetes or heart diseases by 30-50 per cent. Considering how our core clients decided to extend their partnership with us into phase 2 roll-outs, we have started work to extend our service to larger markets across Southeast Asia,” Co-founder Ting said.

Also Read: Malaysian healthtech startup Naluri raises US$250K seed funding from 500 Startups, BioMark

“Outside the clinic or hospital, current healthcare services and wellness programs do not provide enough ongoing support. Most are only focussed on transactional, one-off consultation sessions, ignoring the tracking of clinically-significant health outcomes such as weight reduction, blood sugar, blood pressure, and cholesterol reduction, or quantifiable improvements in levels of depression, anxiety, and stress,” said Osman-Rani.

Previously, Naluri has raised US$242,800) seed funding from Singapore-based healthcare analytics company BioMark and 500 Startups’ Southeast Asia-focussed fund 500 Durians. 

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Halodoc operates a mobile platform for patients to access doctors any time of the day and pharmacy delivery across 50 cities, as well as home lab services

Halodoc, an online healthcare platform in Indonesia, has secured an undisclosed amount in Series B-plus funding from strategic investors, including Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Prudential Life Insurance, and Allianz X, the investment unit of the leading insurance and asset management firm Allianz Group.

This comes less than five months after the company secured US$65 million in Series B led by UOB Venture Management in March 2019. Singtel Innov8, Korea Investment Partners and WuXi AppTec, in addition to existing Investors such as Go-Ventures, BliBli, Openspace Ventures and Investidea, had also participated in that round.

The fresh vestment brings Halodoc’s total funding raised so far to US$100 million.

Halodoc operates a mobile platform for patients to access doctors any time of the day and pharmacy delivery across 50 cities, as well as home lab services. Halodoc claims on an average it serves around 7 million patients per month throughout Indonesia with 80 per cent of patients residing outside the main cities of Jakarta and Surabaya.

Also Read: How HaloDoc aims to open greater access to healthcare for all Indonesians

“As an online healthcare application with a mission to simplify healthcare, these strategic partnerships will help improve the quality and number of healthcare options available to Indonesians living outside major cities — particularly outside of Java where healthcare infrastructure is less established,” said Jonathan Sudharta, CEO Halodoc

“Halodoc is successfully driving the digital transformation of the Indonesian healthcare industry through its holistic approach to the patient journey and strong strategic partners like Allianz and GO-Jek,” added Carsten Middendorf, Investment Director at Allianz X.

Todd Swihart, Managing Director Allianz Health & Corporate Solutions, Allianz Life Indonesia, said: “Through this strategic partnership with Halodoc, we will strengthen our 24×7 Digital Healthcare services and expand our Health Ecosystem that complements our range of health services and healthcare provider network.  By providing our customers access to healthcare, anytime and anywhere, we will be able to expand insurance protection for more Indonesians.”

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Be it a playground or your office, vibes play an invisible role

Undoubtedly business is your brainchild but it is the flawless implementation and unbiased efforts which make it flourish and stand amidst global giants of your industry. According to a report, a little over 50% of startups fail in the first four years of their commencement.

Amidst numerous reasons that directly and indirectly impact the fall and rise of a business, work culture and the environment inside your office premises plays one of the most crucial roles in deciding the future of your business.

Boost your company culture

The journey of an entrepreneur is filled with new challenges, however, what makes a successful entrepreneur is a skill to surpass the challenges. In one of his recent interviews,

Rahul Agarwal founder of Designhill said, “Not only for an entrepreneur but it is crucial that entire staff works in enhancing their interpersonal skills. Having the same successfully accomplished eventually leads the brand towards success it deserves”.

1. Failure is part of the walk

No idea or execution comes with an acuity of success. The market is the most unexpected arena and when you are dealing with customers (B2B or B2C) the behavior is highly unprecedented.

Having said this, if you or the team at some point fails or could not bring out the expected results, there isn’t any need to play the blame game or feel defeated. The need instead is to together find the reasons behind and ensure to implement changes with more dedication.

2. Not knowing everything is OK

Be it any business, it starts with an idea. However, to take it further and reach your goals, you need to focus on different aspects. Which includes everything from attaining to retaining your target audience.

To accomplish the same, there are different departments and a defined hierarchy. The team we are talking about. The reason behind having a dedicated team with experienced people is that they are good at their respective jobs.

The perfection is in understanding the same and letting the right person do the right job.

3. Taking responsibilities

This one here is partially linked with our previous point. The task you are assigned is your responsibility and so are the results ascertained. It becomes your primary responsibility to understand your roles and dedicatedly fulfill them.

Every team member has to closely understand and accomplish their roles, taking responsibility. Industry experts believe that if every team member will start taking responsibilities of their task, over half of the hurdles could be easily crossed.

4. Professional acceptance

Someone rightly said, ‘Work while you work, play while you play’. There’s a professional culture which needs to be followed with dedication.

When we say professional acceptance, you need to get yourself completely into the work mode and understand that the people around and the place has some professional ethics. It is your prime responsibility to accept and grasp this professional environment and adhere to it.

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

5. Valuing customers is valuing business

Though last in our list but of high importance. Every team member needs to understand that the business will have no existence in the absence of customers. Not only this, statistics show that companies have to spend more money on client retention in comparison to attaining them.

Having said this, it becomes very important for you to ensure customer satisfaction and value your customers. In absence of the same or any loophole may impact the growth of your business adversely.

Conclusion

Be it a playground or your office, vibes play an invisible role. Besides having a wonderful idea and flawless execution, the environment in your office also plays a vital role in determining the growth of your business.

Studies have revealed that companies with a healthy work culture and positive motivation plays a crucial role in building a better work culture. These were a few important elements that can ensure that your business keeps moving.

However, it is the dedication of the entire team and combined use of expertise which helps you reach the set targets and stand amidst the industry giants.

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This article was first published on e27 on June 31, 2018.

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

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How Sunday Insurance scaled to become one of the region’s pioneering InsurTech leaders

Insurance isn’t an industry that is necessarily closely connected with innovation — after all, an industry with a 300 year legacy is hard to shake up!

Deloitte suggests that though 2017 saw a decline in new insurtech startup activity (only 88 were launched that year – half the number of fresh companies from the years before), insurtech players are still doing brisk business; the first half of 2018 saw as much as US$869 million pouring into the industry, and is on track to equal the US$1.82 billion raised in 2017.

Though much of that growth is still focused in the West, Asia Pacific, which holds 14 percent of the market, is set to be the fastest growing region for the foreseeable future.

Insurtech broke out into the mainstream market in much the same way fintech did: by unbundling the retail space through digital platforms, therefore offering customers more choice, and providing convenient ways to make transactions and interact with their brand and business. However, a subtle shift has been occurring, as the technologies that support the wider fintech world become increasingly sophisticated.

Today, we are increasingly seeing the emergence of insurtech companies that are working on bringing innovative insurance into the industry’s commercial segment. While some of those companies are still working on unbundling financial services, many more mature startups are focused on solving the big problems inherent to the insurance industry.

One such company is Sunday, Thailand’s first and only insuretch startup. It bills itself as a “full-stack insurance business” that serves its customers throughout the purchasing and claims process. Sunday exploded onto the marketplace with its innovative products that are built atop machine learning and artificial intelligence frameworks, bolstered by big data analytics.

Customised, down to the individual

Sunday was started with the mission of solving insurance’s pricing issue. Their bold claim: AI and machine learning can fix these problems. According to Dhanadham Pokthitiyuk, Sunday’s Head of Marketing, the company started when they noticed an unfulfilled need in the Thai market for insurance that worked for the customer, not just the insurance company.

“There are various pain points from the users that never have been resolved,” Pokthitiyuk said. “We did a lot of market research on and came out with ideas on how to make people’s lives easier and more fuss free. This is one of the reasons why we name ourselves ‘Sunday’, because we want everyone feel easy like Sunday morning, 365 days a year.”

The core idea of Sunday’s business model is their clever use of AI and ML in the creation of their insurance products. By leveraging on their ML algorithms, Sunday is able to provide customers with a wider range of insurance policies that are highly customised in terms of cost and coverage, in order to provide the best value.

Sunday’s business model is predicated on a creative premise that the company could accurately assess a customer’s individual risk rating. This means that each user will receive a product pricing that is based on their individual risk and not market or population aggregated risk.

They do this by taking into account previous variables not usually considered by traditional insurance players, at various “touch points ranging from product design, dynamic pricing, [up to the] claims process”, explained Pokthitiyuk. “I think the possibilities are endless. We need to be creative in the way we use data and tech and that is the key.”

A focus on the unserved

“We believe that we are building a company that is adaptive…to the risks that we are trying to cover and serve our customers what they need,” Cindy Kua, Sunday’s CEO and co-founder, said in an interview with Amazon Web Services. “We want to use data and technology to completely redefine the entire insurance value chain.”

She further explained that Sunday’s model is able to fully automate the claims assessment model from beginning to end. “It is flexible to price and provide any type of products for any type of customer in real time,” Kua said.

Sunday has tapped into two major issues within the insurance industry: cost and accessibility. Most insurance firms are not incentivised to provide products to lower-income communities because it is costly to operations.

However, there is a huge business case for insurtech companies working to introduce more affordable and relevant products to lower-income populations: there are as many as 3.8 billion uninsured individuals in emerging markets, and 84 percent of catastrophic economic losses in Asia (or US$26 billion) went uninsured in 2017.

This massively unserved market could prove hugely lucrative.

Sunday’s success in the market had a lot to do with the key decisions it made regarding product expansion. According to Pokthitiyuk, the company started its expansion in the area of motor insurance, especially for taxi drivers who fork out exorbitant fees for public use cars. “We started gathering data about how these drivers drive and their risk and design the bite-sized motor insurance product that fit with their needs,” he said.

Their groundbreaking motor insurance product led to a tie-up with Grab, where Sunday would offer “Grab Driver’s Health”, a policy that would enhance drivers’ livelihood and work conditions in busy, congested Bangkok. Sunday said that the partnership would help alleviate some of the issues created by the gig economy, where uncertainty is the name of the game.

These “bite-sized” policies have become a staple of Sunday’s business model, as they work with the needs and resources of Thailand’s generally low-income population. Another bite-sized insurance scheme that Sunday offers is its affordable travel insurance micro-policies that include flight delay compensation.

Sunday is also exploring an expansion into the B2B group health insurance segment, in order to sidestep problems posed by traditional, pre-made health insurance packages that usually prove inaccessible for SMEs and businesses with limited financial resources.

Pokthitiyuk said the company has plans to expand beyond the immediate Bangkok area, where they are headquartered, and eventually other countries in Southeast Asia.

Embedded deep in Sunday’s philosophy is a commitment to serving its customers where they are by providing the most optimised option. Pokthitiyuk advised startups that want to scale up their business and find similar success to focus on the user’s perspective before their own.

“Start with the needs of the users; many start-ups fail because they mainly think about the products but forget how to scale them. Thinking from users perspective is also important,” he said. “The products need to solve customers’ pain points and serve their needs.”

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Don’t rush to scale if you are ill-prepared to do so

Many tech startups go off the rails despite having the right people, enough resources, a good base of customers. Why? They often scale up too soon without working on building a cogent framework for transitioning to mature firms.

In fact, premature scaling contributes to 74 per cent of startup failures, according to Startup Genome that surveyed 3200+ high growth tech startups. Also, tech startups that scale properly grow 20 times faster than startups that scale prematurely, cites the same report.

So If you want to grow your tech startup at a steady pace, you should think twice before taking the leap.

Here are the five questions that can help you do successful scaling up of your tech startup.

1- Have you achieved your goals?

Every tech startup fixes goals when they started out. What are your goals? Have you achieved them?

It is not a wise decision to start the process of scaling up if you have not met or exceeded your previously set goals.

Some common goals for an early stage tech-startup are:

• Building a minimum viable product (MVP)
• Launching beta version of the product
• Hiring resource to start operations
• Launching the complete product
• Getting the first round of funding
• Setting growth milestones

You might have chosen any of these goals or different goals based on your tech business.

As all the startups are different, so are their goals. The point is you should meet or exceed your goals. Only then, you should think about scaling up your tech startup.

Also, scaling up requires you to set new goals (short term and long-term goals) for your tech startup. How can set new goals if you haven’t met your previously set goals?

2. Have you got your strategic plan right?

A strategic plan is a plan to achieve what you want to achieve. Your old strategic plan, if it didn’t incorporate future scaling up, might not work. It is because scaling is different than growing.

Therefore, you should tweak your strategic plan so that it can help you achieve new business objectives post scaling up.

And make sure that scaling up your tech start doesn’t adversely affect your existing work culture.

3. Have you made an aggressive marketing plan?

The idea of scaling up a tech startup comes into existence as the startup owner is poised to grow his/her tech business. Previously set business goals have been met or exceeded. Now, it is time to spread wings and search for a new market to grow rapidly.

However, scaling up won’t bring the intended outcomes if there is no solid marketing plan. Have you made an aggressive marketing plan?

Also Read: 3 ways to know if your startup is ready to go international

It goes without saying that doing marketing for a tech startup is different than the marketing for a brick and mortar store. So you need to leverage tactics that will deliver the real results.

Here are the six effective ways to spread the word for your tech startup and grow your business:

• Paid search
• Display advertising
• Organic and paid social media
• Email marketing
• Digital PR campaigns
• Content marketing

Most tech startups need to educate their prospects to convert them into customers. Therefore, content marketing is found to be an effective marketing strategy for tech startups.

Make a kickass marketing plan before you scale up your startup. Believe me, it will maximize your success.

4. Do you have enough resources?

Be it hiring more people, expanding your business to new locations, launching a new product, or run a marketing campaign, you will need money to run these operations.

How is your financial health? Do you have enough resources to scale up your business?

“Contrary to conventional wisdom, the most dangerous period for entrepreneurs is not when they start up from scratch but when they scale up for growth,” states Harvard Business Review.

When you are at the initial stage, there is very little to lose. But when you are scaling up your tech business, things can turn hot really fast if you don’t have proper financial planning in place.

So make sure you are able to use multiple sources of finance and raise money from investors before you take the plunge.

5. Have you forecasted your industry for the next 2-3 years?

The technology landscape is changing so fast that many tech products are becoming obsolete in just two or three years.

The competitive dynamics may change in the next 2-3 years as you focus on scaling up your tech business, which can make it difficult for you to stay profitable.

So it is imperative that you should make an educated guess about how the industry is going to move in the next 2-3 years. And the only way to do it is to be fully aware of the latest trends in your industry.

Also Read: From products to businesses: the hidden opportunities of IoT

Subscribing to newsletters of your industry, keeping tabs on Google Trends, and regularly talking to your customers are some proven ways to make an educated guess about the latest industry trends.

Final thoughts

Scaling up your tech startup is a big decision. Once you have taken this decision, it is difficult turning back. So have answers to the above questions to make scaling up more successful.

What about you? Have you scaled up your startup recently? Share your experience. I’d love to know about it.

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The post Answer these 5 questions before you scale up your tech startup appeared first on e27.

Why an existential crisis is actually not bad for you

 

 

 

When you are my age, chances are that you’ve experienced an existential crisis or are currently in one.

This crisis, typically in midlife, is signalled by feelings of emptiness, pointlessness, and lack of fulfilment. Life on the surface might seem reasonable, but underneath there’s discontentment brewing.

Boundaries

 

The seeds for this is laid in our childhood. During the early stages of life, we make sense of the world and our role in it, through the strong influences around us – society, family, religion, peer group.

Our views on key questions like what is success? what is happiness? what is morally right and wrong? are all shaped by these forces.

Over time, these get re-enforced by appreciation and corrected by criticism. We go through life traversing within these boundaries defined for us.

Crisis

Also Read: Stan Lee’s 5 lessons on business and life

When we hit mid-life, even though we may be doing well – have the 5Cs (Cash, Card, Condo, Car, Club Membership) in the Singapore context, or happily married with kids – something seems off.

We feel sad and restless. We are intrigued by our unhappiness, as nothing can explain it to us. To get over this, we create excitement in our life by buying a convertible, going on a shopping spree, or taking an extended vacation.

This gives us temporary pleasure, but the sinking feeling re-emerges shortly after.

Inwards

 

Now we are officially and visibly in an existential crisis. The unhappiness leads us inwards. We question everything in life. Do I really need the 6 figure salary? Am I spending enough time with my kids? Am I making an impact?

We even challenge our own existence. With time, patience, curiosity and deeply personal work, we start dissolving away some of the boundaries set for us. If we are lucky, we have a wise friend, therapist or coach support us during this phase.

We open up to the possibility that some universally accepted truths like marriage, babies, or a 9-6 job may not be for us.

Freedom

Also Read: 3 lessons I learned as a student entrepreneur

As these boundaries dissolve, we feel a sense of freedom. The suffocation is lifted, and we feel empowered. With this newfound lens of possibility, we test our limits by exploring alternative career paths, experimenting with passionate projects, or giving a shot to things we’ve been curious about, but afraid to try.

In this unfamiliar territory, with our successes/failures, happiness/sadness, we start getting a deeper understanding of ourselves. We discover what drives us and what’s important to us.

Boundaries

Floating unconstrained, after a while, however, makes us dizzy. Without an anchor, we get knocked around aimlessly. We feel the need for principles and guidelines to ground us.

This is the time to turn to our values, beliefs and gifts. These are easier to access, given how deeply we are in touch with ourselves. Our values and strengths help re-erect new boundaries.

These voluntary principles, coming from within, enable us to find our authenticity, unleash our potential, and start living a purpose-driven life.

The above is a simplified version of the different phases in an existential crisis. Everyone, however, has a unique experience, rarely as structured and linear as described above.

An existential crisis does not always lead to a drastic change in life, but it helps us discover and define ourselves by our core values. Sometimes, after quitting our job, we may realise that having a steady career, after all, is essential to us, leading us back to that path.

Also Read: Founder depression and how to tackle it

This time, however, with a stronger purpose and belief. In a nutshell, an existential crisis leads us inwards, enables deep personal work, and steers us from the universal to the authentic individual self.

 

 

The post An existential crisis or a path to freedom? appeared first on e27.

Also, Gojek adds energy tycoon Garibaldi Thohir as commissioner, India-based fintech Zeta raises Series C funding

WeWork to go IPO in September [Techcrunch]

Co-working space unicorn WeWork speeds up its plans to go public as it is expected to unveil is S-1 filing next month just ahead of a September initial public offering.

Earlier this year, the company that goes by the name The We Company is already valued at
US$47 billion. According to Techcrunch, the company is now in the process of meeting with Wall Street banks to secure an asset-backed loan upwards of US$6 billion in what could be an effort to downsize its upcoming stock offering.

WeWork has raised a total of US$8.4 billion in a combination of debt and equity funding since it was founded in 2011. Its IPO is poised to become the second-largest offering of the year.

WeWork is currently backed by SoftBank, Benchmark, T. Rowe Price, Fidelity, and Goldman Sachs.

Following rebranding, Gojek adds Garibaldi Thohir as commissioner [DealStreetAsia]

After announcing rebranding two days ago, Gojek announced the appointment of energy sector tycoon Garibaldi Thohir as its commissioner. Garibaldi Thohir is the president director of coal mining giant Adaro Energy.

Garibaldi Thohir acquired Adaro with a consortium of Indonesian businessmen in 2015 from Australia’s company New Hope. He occupied the 16th position on Forbes Indonesia rich list in 2018.

Also Read: Go-Jek unveils new logo as it enters next phase of growth

He established a motorcycle financing company Wahana Ottomitra Multiartha (WOM Finance) in 1997 and also owns a stake in Hutchison 3 Indonesia, a telecom services company.

He graduated from the University of Southern California in 1988 and received an MBA from Northrop University, California, in 1989. Garibaldi Thohir recently invested an undisclosed sum for a majority stake in Muslim app Umma, founded by Northstar Group’s Indra Wiralaksmana.

India-based employee benefits startup Zeta raises Series C investment valued at US$300M [Press Release]

Zeta, cloud-based credit, debit, and prepaid products issuance platform for the employee benefits based in India, announced that it has raised a Series C funding from Sodexo Benefits and Rewards (BRS), at a valuation of US$300 million.

Zeta said that it will use the fund to expand its cloud banking platform and digital payments solutions in the United States, United Kingdom, Europe, and Southeast Asia.

Zeta was established in 2015, and currently has products such as a full-stack cloud-native neo-banking platform for issuance of credit, debit and prepaid products that enable legacy banks and new-age fintech institutions to launch retail and corporate fintech products, as well as an enterprise solution for corporates such as automated cafeteria, employee gifting, & R&R.

Until now, Zeta has been funded by co-founders Bhavin Turakhia and Ramki Gaddipati. With this investment Sodexo will have a minority stake in the company.

Indonesian salestech Pomona completes US$3M funding from Vynn Capital [e27]

Pomona, an Indonesia-based omnichannel marketing and sales-tech startup, announced the completion of US$3 million in “Series A-2” funding round led by Vynn Capital. Joining the round are Ventech China and Amand Ventures, as well as existing investors Stellar Kapital and Central Capital Ventura.

Pomona said that it will use the funding to introduce new services, accelerate product development, and hire new staff. New products will include tools for companies to improve supplier and retailer relationship management and improve business transparency.

Also Read: Digital platform for employee benefits Zeta invests in human capital management company ZingHR

Pomona was co-founded in May 2016 by Benz Budiman (CEO) and Ari Suwendi (CTO) with a focus on providing digital marketing and sales services for global consumer packaged goods (CPG) and fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) industry. Pomona leverages consumer cashback options to facilitate brand-consumer engagement and promote sales conversion. The approach allows customers to receive money back on qualified and promotional goods by uploading a proof of purchase photo into its app.
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