Helping businesses transact faster as part of Singapore’s move towards a Smart Nation
Extensive paperwork and lengthy application processes are two major pain points cited by business owners when transacting with government agencies.
Administering a business is hard work all on its own, and business owners need to feel supported when dealing with government transactions.
Solutions for this and many other everyday issues are continually being looked at by the Government Technology Agency of Singapore (GovTech), the government’s digital transformation arm. GovTech harnesses the power of digital technologies to strengthen Singapore’s tech capability and interconnectedness within government networks, in an endeavour to improve the quality of life in the island nation.
In an effort to enable faster, fuss-free and more secure digital transactions, and as part of a greater framework to foster a Smart Nation, GovTech spearheaded MyInfo Business in 2019.
Bringing it up a notch with MyInfo Business
This digital service is an extension of the existing MyInfo platform. Personal data services found in MyInfo have now been expanded to include corporate data with MyInfo Business. Since January 2019, MyInfo Business has been in a pilot with three local banks – Development Bank of Singapore (DBS), Oversea-Chinese Banking Corporation (OCBC) and United Overseas Bank (UOB) – to facilitate speedier credit assessments for Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs).
With the consent of the SME business owner, MyInfo Business automatically populates bank forms with business data including the basic profile of the owner, business address, UENs and names, shareholders, capital, financial highlights, grants and more. Banks retrieve the information digitally from government agencies in a secure manner, which effectively eliminates the need for paper documentation and verification, thus saving precious time for business owners.
Through MyInfo Business, banks were able to process account openings and loan applications faster, cutting down transaction time by 60 to 70 percent on average.
SMEs would also enjoy the benefit of streamlined operations, shortened application times, reduced reliance on hard copy submissions, and improved access to commercial services.
“It’s a hassle-free experience with MyInfo Business. All we have to do is login and submit already-verified information to the bank. This would have taken us days to complete in the past, but now it only requires a streamlined eight minutes to process,” said Mr Eric Chua, Chief Executive Officer at Rocket Buzzer.
A springboard for business management
Beyond the pilot, MyInfo Business APIs are scheduled for release in the second half of 2019. This would further promote the development of intuitive and convenient digital commercial services for SMEs, and is part of the Singapore government’s efforts to co-create a Smart Nation with the private sector. It is expected that around 220,000 SMEs would gain from this initiative.
Enterprises looking to offer B2B digital services via MyInfo Business can visit https://business.myinfo.gov.sg to find out more, and subscribe to the mailing list to receive updates on the service.
A national digital identity in a Smart Nation: the future and beyond
MyInfo Business is a vital component of Singapore’s National Digital Identity (NDI) platform, which also encompasses SingPass, CorpPass, and MyInfo. With NDI as a key enabler for Singapore’s Smart Nation vision, citizens and businesses alike will benefit from the growth of seamless and secure digital transactions. The NDI platform will also be a core infrastructure which industry partners can utilise to build innovative services. As Singapore gears to accelerate adoption of technology, services like MyInfo Business will contribute greatly towards a vibrant Digital Economy.
The sale includes ownership stake in some notable businesses
Axiata Digital Sdn. Bhd. (AD), the digital services arm of Axiata Group Berhad (Axiata), announced that it has agreed to sell its Digital Ventures portfolio at a valuation of USD 140 million.
The portfolio companies currently under management are StoreKing, BIMA, FreedomPop, 11street and etobee. Co-investors that include Allianz X, Kinnevik, Millicom, LetterOne, Intel Capital, Atomico, Mangrove Capital Partners, LeapFrog Investments, and Kejora Ventures.
“The partners in Pegasus 7 understand our vision, our markets and our portfolio companies which we’ve built to focus on our ecosystem of telco and digital assets. We strongly believe this handover will ensure the assets continue to thrive through access to our customer base, joint marketing, and other synergistic activities,” said Mohd Khairil Abdullah, CEO, Axiata Digital.
Under Gautam Saxena’s leadership, founder and CEO of Pegasus 7 Ventures, Pegasus said that it will drive the growth of the portfolio. Saxena is a senior investment banker and former Head of Asia Telecom and Media with Bank of America Merrill Lynch.
“The addition of these assets to the Pegasus 7 portfolio is synergistic with our thematic focus and will serve as an enabler for our future growth path,” said Saxena.
Currently, the existing portfolio is largely focussed on companies that address the needs of underserved consumers and encompass services such as micro-insurance, online to offline (O2O)/rural commerce, e-commerce, last mile solutions for banks, and e-mobile virtual network operator (e-MVNO) segments.
Pegasus has stated that it plans to accelerate value creation by scaling these companies and enhancing their access to global financial, strategic, and operational partners.
In the meantime, Axiata Digital said that it will continue to focus on its three core verticals which include digital financial services (Boost), digital advertising (ada), and digital platform (Apigate).
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e27 TOP100 winners will be awarded a fast-track pass to compete at SLINGSHOT!
Every major city in Southeast Asia has a goal to become the major startup hub in the region. They all have their own unique characteristics — be it market size, specific industry or gaps that have not been filled by a competitor.
For Singapore, its advantage is access to capital and corporates. According to Enterprise Singapore, the city-state is home to 150 VCs that facilitated 353 deals worth US$10.5 billion. Furthermore, many corporates like Google, Facebook and Microsoft have made Singapore their APAC headquarters.
This has helped create a honeypot effect that has resulted in the city hosting over 4,000 startups employing 22,000 people.
It is in this context that Enterprise Singapore is officially opening its SLINGSHOT 2019 programme. The international pitching competition is part of the agency’s mission to “deepen efforts with global and local partners to strengthen the startup ecosystem in Singapore”.
It has also partnered with e27‘s TOP100 programme. The winning startups at Echelon Asia Summit 2019 will be fast-tracked to pitch at SLINGSHOT.
This year, the competition is introducing a few new programmes. They are as follows:
Dealmaking: The startups will be selected according to investment and co-innovation interests from judges and corporates. This means that startups can feel confident at least a portion of the prizes up for grabs. This includes S$25,000 (US$18,300) in cash and an investment opportunity from ST Engineering. FundedHere is also offering a S$200,000 (US$147,000) investment opportunity.
Startups will also have an opportunity at S$25,000 (US$18,300) from Danone, L’Oréal and Rolls-Royce.
Other non-financial prizes include 18 months of workspace at JTC LaunchPad, 3-months access to Found8 community programmes and hot-desking space and cooperation possibilities with Ascott, Philips and WeAre Group. The startups will also receive a free booth at the tech conference SWITCH.
Meetings are necessary, but often viewed with dread by employees. So how do we fix it?
It was Friday at 4pm.
Our product teams were presenting the results of a fun hack week. One group shared a QR code, so we installed their multiplayer quiz app and started to compete.
The first quiz was called, “How well do you know JotForm?”
Given that I founded the company 12 years ago, you would think I’d have an unfair advantage.
I placed 18th.
I got stuck on a question about our mascot, Podo. I was slower than my staff, too.
Regardless, the afternoon was so much fun. We laughed and talked and I felt proud of what the teams created. It was like a productive party.
Technically, this was a demo day, which is one of our few scheduled meetings. Every Friday, our teams show what they’ve learned or built throughout the week.
Demo days aren’t status meetings; we share tangible results, not droning updates. And we keep it short. An hour, max. Show your work or a quick video clip and let’s move on.
I share this story, because I believe that all meetings are not created equal. They’re not necessarily a “scourge” on your company.
Meetings are part of life as a founder or entrepreneur, but they’ve also become a hotly-debated topic — especially in the tech industry.
In a leaked email to his Tesla staff, Elon Musk says large meetings are the “blight of big companies and [they] almost always get worse over time.”
Musk also tells his staff to “walk out of a meeting or drop off a call as soon as it’s obvious you aren’t adding value. It is not rude to leave, it is rude to make someone stay and waste their time.”
That’s a pretty clear directive.
So, what’s the solution?
Before JotForm had over 100 employees and 3.5 million users, I didn’t think much about meetings. It was just me at first, and the business grew slowly.
Now that we have three offices on two continents, I approach meetings much more strategically.
I don’t want to waste my time — and I really don’t want to lock my employees into pointless status updates. They’re the brains and the engine behind this business.
I want to empower them to do their very best work, and to enjoy the process.
Ultimately, every entrepreneur needs to set their own boundaries and create a meeting strategy that fits their organization. Here’s what works for us.
1. Individual team offices
Our company has small, cross-functional teams of 4–6 people. Each group includes a designer, developer, UX specialist, and any other roles they need to create new product features, from start to finish.
Each team also has its own office, with a door that closes.
By working in the same space, teams don’t have to plan formal meetings. They can share ideas and feedback all day long.
It’s continuous self-management — and not only does this model inspire great work, it also prevents that dreaded calendar Tetris, where your schedule becomes a colorfully-unproductive puzzle.
Clearly, people also need quiet work time. Our teams set their own rules around interruptions and breaks — but the key here is that they decide.
I know this structure might not work for everyone, but it’s worth considering what could slash those lengthy meetings.
Maybe your team uses Slack or Messenger for quick requests. Or you could create a weekly “office hours” period when everyone is available for informal questions and connections. Experiment and see what works.
2. No status meetings
“It’s hard to come up with a bigger waste of money, time, or attention than status meetings.” — Jason Fried
I spent my summers in our İzmir offices which are by the incredible blue/green waters of the Aegean sea. After a recent status meeting with our San Francisco team, I decided to cancel these updates for the summer.
I do know that I want to spend those evenings with my family at the Çeşme beaches, instead of staying late at the office. We’ll schedule ad-hoc meetings instead. And I know I’m not alone in this change.
Pinterest engineering manager Brian Donohue recently described a three-day, no-meeting schedule the company is testing with product engineering teams:
“It’s not a big revelation that software development requires long stretches of uninterrupted time to focus.
As Pinterest has grown, we’ve noticed the number of meetings also has increased.
Having so many meetings can fragment an engineer’s entire day, eliminating the stretches of uninterrupted time required to build software.”
Donohue says that this “seemingly small change” has already had a big impact. Over 91 per cent of the developers say the switch has made them more productive and 80 per cent say the no-meeting schedule is respected.
Pinterest is still experimenting, but it’s fascinating to see how another company is trying to balance uninterrupted work time with effective team communication.
3. Walking meetings
Given that the typical American sits an average of 9.3 hours a day, walking meetings can boost your health and creativity, tear down hierarchies, improve communication, and make people happier, among other reported benefits.
Steve Jobs, Twitter’s Jack Dorsey, and Mark Zuckerberg have also been known to take it outside when they’re meeting with one or two other people.
I’m a fan of this meeting style, too. I always try to go for lunch and a walk with new employees, for example. We get to know each other in a relaxed way, and (hopefully), they start to see me as more than just “the boss.”
Don’t try to bring seven people on a walking meeting, of course. But if you have the time, ability, and appropriate weather to escape the office, give it a try.
4. Email feedback
A recent Fast Company article quotes interaction designer Don Norman, who says email is “the office memo turned cancerous, extended to home and everyday life.”
I get it. Most people hate email. At worst, the inbox can feel like a Sisyphean to-do list or an extended leash.
But if I’m going to pick between email and a meeting, I’ll go electronic — and it’s not because I don’t want to talk to my teams. Instead, I can give them thoughtful, considered feedback, and I do it on my time.
The “interruption” (which is really my job) comes at the end of the day when I sit down and pursue that all-important Inbox Zero.
5. Specific goals
Productive meetings have a clear goal and introduce new, useful (and usable) information.
There are two weekly meetings I look forward to: one with our Data Team and one with our User Research Team. Data Team share data analysis, conversion rates, test results and other helpful stats. The User Researchers tell me what they’ve learned from user interviews and usability tests they have completed.
If there’s unusual behaviour on a metric, we talk about it and try to generate solutions. I always learn so much — and the details they share directly influence my work.
The anti-meeting backlash can make founders feel like every conference call or briefing is a waste of time. I don’t think that’s true.
A meeting that quickly and efficiently accomplishes its goal, while effectively aligning the participants is well worth the space in your schedule.
Business is a team sport. Nothing great is achieved in isolation. We all need to talk over plans and ideas, but finding a more strategic approach is valuable for everyone.
6. The power of “no”
Author Kevin Ashton says “the word ‘no’ has more creative power than ideas, insights and talent combined,” but most people aren’t taught to use it:
“We are taught not to say “no.” “No” is rude. “No” is a rebuff, a rebuttal, a minor act of verbal violence. “No” is for drugs and strangers with candy.”
Clearly, the ability to say “no” is a privilege and a form of power. Not every employee can flex that power in all situations. But, when you can — and especially if you’re making the rules — let’s say no to unproductive meetings.
After all, meetings shouldn’t be a four-letter word. The act of sharing ideas and updating our colleagues shouldn’t be something we dread. It should fuel the organization, not drain its momentum.
So, maybe we can’t all walk out of meetings or hang up on long-winded calls, but we can be more strategic. More respectful of each other’s time.
Let’s try to change how we work and communicate, for everyone’s benefit.
Maybe it was the youthful nature, but all 10 companies had some sort of altruistic mission
An entrepreneur pitched a product that helped deaf people with day-to-day communications. One company was educating young people about technology and another was trying to radically alter how cafes approach interior design.
At the inaugural *SCAPE HubQuarters Fellowship Demo Day, young companies spent the evening pitching to a host of judges, mentors and audience members to further validate whether or not their idea can grow into the next sexy startup story.
A major reason why these companies were in their infancy has to do with the mis-sion of *SCAPE, which is a platform designed to empower people in Singapore’s un-der the age of 35. For a lot of participants, *SCAPE became the necessary support group to give them confidence to chase their startup dreams.
The *SCAPE event was the conclusion of a 6-month-long fellowship programme that hosted 21 qualifying teams across 22 sessions to help them get their business off the ground. 10 of them were pitching at the Demo Day.
“This space is really meant for the youth. Last year, we curated 5,000 square feet ofspace to turn it into a co-working space for our young entrepreneurs to incubate. My congratulations again to our 10 teams that [pitched] today,” said Goh Kok Wee, the Executive Director of *SCAPE.
The jury present for the pitches were as follows:
David Ding, Head of Fintech (Regional), DBS Innovation Group
Lavanya Karthikeyan, Business Development & Legal, PBA Group
Ori Takemura, Assistant Vice President, Design Director, Singapore Press Holdings
Low Jian Liang, Co-Founder, Reactor Ventures
For StaffAny, a *SCAPE participant and a winner of the 2019 e27 TOP100 Singapore regional qualifiers, the biggest value-add from the programme was access to mentors and connections.
“They introduced us to good mentors from the F&B industry. Through their experiences, we are able to identify potential pitfalls we might have because they are in the F&B industry. They know their stuff the best; inside-out,” said Eugene Ng, a Co-founder of StaffAny.
StaffAny was approaching the pitching competition as a BD lead generation exercise, hoping that a few of the tenants of the *SCAPE space (a mall-type building in Singapore’s Orchard neighborhood) could become future clients.
For Lena Toh, the Founder of goodgoblins, a recycling company, *SCAPE provided her an opportunity to take an idea that was not yet a company and transform it into a concrete startup.
“I had a normal job and just an idea. It helped me bring the idea to the stage where I have validated and [built a] prototype. We did a month-long pilot so that validated my idea about goodgoblins,” she said.
Toh ended up jumping into the deep end by quitting her job to pursue the company full-time. One takeaway of the event was a sense that the companies all had an altruistic mis-sion. Maybe it is the youthful energy, but the startups were more consistently trying to solve societal problems than other Demo Days. Let’s have a look!
Telelay
Telelay wants to make the day-to-day communication for deaf people more convenient. The strategy is to integrate video calls and a translator into the phone call process. Think about booking a restaurant, which can be challenging for a person with hear-ing impairments.
In Telelay, the user will use video chat to call an online interpreter, who would then facilitate the call with the recipient. The company wants to charge a small fee per call.
Shift
Shift wants to make cafes more flexible and dynamic with customisable furniture. The idea is to use magnetic blocks to allow people to “build what they need” in an open space.
For example, if you want to pop-in for a quick break, then placing two blocks on top of one another to create a standing table. Or for meetings, you can put 4-5 next to each other to create a table. The company wants to bring people in by making it a space for workshops and advocacy groups.
The idea is that the space will be free for these groups and their “fee” will be the price of coffee/food.
goodgoblins
goodgoblins is a home recyclables collection service that wants to help Singaporeans build the habit of recycling.
The company allows people to sign-up for a subscription service that pays for people come to their apartments on a regular basis and pick-up the recycling to take to the plants. The company will also generate revenue by selling the waste back to recycling companies.
What is interesting about the service is that it wants to measure trow-away habits and give feedback to users to help motivate them to reduce their consumption. For example, if a person recycles 5kg of waste one week, and then 7kg the next, the app will let them know so that they need to be more mindful about how they buy goods.
Successpedia Asia
This media company wants to help people find motivation by publishing the “journey behind successful people”. It also wants to “empower Asians for Asia”. The company’s main service is as a content creator but it also wants to get into events, live sessions and more complicated production services.
BoomX
BoomX wants to ‘skill up’ older folks to help them take advantage of their experience and make money either freelancing or starting small businesses. While there are a lot of support networks aimed towards the silver generation, some of the jobs offered to elderly people lack dignity (think of the typical hawker center cleaning auntie/uncle).
BoomX wants to figure out what skills these people have and teach them how to leverage it to make money in a more meaningful avenue. The Founder also runs a company called Boomercise, which is an exercise pro-gramme to help older folks stay healthy.
Omnitree
Omnitree has built an app for collaborative education in the classroom. It wants to be a one-stop-shop for in-classroom lessons. For example, it is building products that facilitate Q&A with the classroom, trivia questions/answers and other collaborative projects.
It wants to stop teachers from having to flip through multiple apps while going through a lesson. The company wants to target teachers and administrators and charge them for a subscription.
Increa
Increa tries to understand individual learning needs to provide customisable lessons and help people adapt to how they learn. The company offers workshops, activities like nature walks and even a variety of spaces to be able to adapt to the best learning environment.
It has hired a group of trainers who are experienced educators and know how to engage individual students.
Crop
Crop is an independent design studio that tries to stand apart by not following de-sign trends, finding alternative perspectives and being a craft-centric agency. It wants to build a culture whereby the craftsmen are valued as part of the design process.
The company approached the Demo Day as a means to find long-term collaborators.
Innovation Garage
A company that hopes to inspire the next generation, Innovation Garage is a STEM education service for kids between the ages of 8-12. So far, the team has taught in 5 schools and over 600 students. It charges various prices based on the complexity of a 10-hour course.
The goal is to build a company that can consistently lead these classes across the entirety of Singapore.
StaffAny
Easily the most mature of the companies, StaffAny is an hourly-worker staff management platform. StaffAny is really growing, having enjoyed a 25 per cent month-on-month expansion rate. Actually, when asked by the judges, the startup said navigating this growth is the current top challenge for the startup.
The service is used by 51 companies and has a projected 6x LTV:CAC ratio. A number that allows new clients to essentially pay for their acquisition cost. In the near future, the company sees itself as a solution to unsolvable problems like payday loans, shift-based hiring, performance-based resumes and part-timer insurance.
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The inaugural *SCAPE fellowship is in the books! Make sure to keep an eye out for announcements, calls for applications and updates from the next cohort of fellows!
Social commerce is a big deal in Indonesia, and TokoTalk wants to seize this golden opportunity
The votes are in –and the e27 Community has voted for Indonesian social commerce platform TokoTalk as Startup of the Month!
Owned by South Korean tech startup Codebrick, TokoTalk is a chat-based e-commerce platform built specifically for online sellers on social media such as Instagram.
Social commerce is a big deal in Indonesia. In fact, data by the country’s Ministry of Finance revealed that 64 per cent of all e-commerce transactions occurred through social media.
This is the opportunity that TokoTalk wants to tap into. The startup aims to make the social commerce process more simple through integration of its service with various social media platforms.
It recently stole our attention through a US$3.2 million funding round by Silicon Valley-based Altos Ventures.
As a runner-up, the e27 Community picked Singapore-based Saleswhale.
Using proprietary AI technology, Saleswhale describes its service as supporting sales and marketing teams by automating the lead engagement and qualification processes.
The platform uses natural language processing (NLP) to classify the intent of an email lead, detect sentiment, and extract named entities (including locations, dates, times, and competitor keywords).
The startup recently raised a US$5.3 million Series A funding round led by Monk’s Hill Ventures.
The funding round included the participation of GREE Ventures, Wavemaker Partners, and Y Combinator.
Congratulations and best of luck to the two startups!
Companies out to dazzle you with their brilliant startup products — check them out at the Echelon Asia Summit 2019
There are lots of great reasons for you to come to Echelon Asia Summit 2019! With more than 15,000 people attending from over 30 countries, the Echelon Asia Summit brings together a full-range of personalities across the field of tech: from tech enthusiasts, to up-and-coming startup founders, and even to leaders and experts! This makes Echelon Asia Summit 2019 the perfect opportunity for you to brush elbows with potential future partners, investors, colleagues, or other like-minded people who might appreciate your ideas!
More than 120 speakers will also be sharing key insights on emerging trends and disruptive technologies across four key stages, namely: Founder stage, Future stage, Capital stage, and the top 100 stage—where 100 of the most promising startups will be pitching live!
And finally, one of the key features of Echelon Asia Summit 2019 is how it will showcase some of the most brilliant startup products in the region. With 300 exhibitors that will sprawl all over Singapore Expo, participants can witness firsthand how these companies are changing the world.
So without further ado, here is the fourth set of Echelon Asia Summit 2019 exhibitors!
Sparadise Asia
Sparadise connects you to the best therapists and delivers them to your doorstep, so you can enjoy quality spa service wherever you are.
Soft Solvers Solutions
SoftSolvers offers fully customisable business automation solutions designed to improve productivity for medium to large corporations.
Sendbird
SendBird is a fully managed chat solution for enterprise mobile and web services. SendBird powers in-app conversation for the world’s leading companies including GO-JEK, Tokopedia, Carousell, and over 12,000+ other applications.
Sunday Insurance
Sunday is a full-stack InsurTech that uses AI and digital platforms to offer personalized insurance products and services.
Qlue Performa Indonesia
Qlue helps solve urbanisation problems and promotes transparency between governments and their citizens.
Musiio
Musiio is artificial Intelligence for the Music Industry.
Cognifyx
Cognifyx is a cognitive and behavioral science company.
Rentickle
Rentickle enables renting of lifestyle products like Furniture, Appliances, and Fitness items. It operates as a combination of Asset Ownership/Asset Financing/Market place model.
Simply Giving
SimplyGiving.com is Asia’s leading crowdfunding platform for social impact. They are inspired by the power of the Internet to do Good.
Outpost
Outpost is a network of co-living, co-working, and social spaces designed for the fast-growing international community of remote professionals, creatives, and digital nomads.
Bambu
Bambu is a robo-advisory solution provider offering savings and investment applications for web and mobile.
Kdan Mobile Software Inc
Kdan Mobile fosters ways to create contents and boost productivity with modern technology, especially on mobile devices.
Papaya Insurtech
Papaya digitises the entire insurance customer journey from quotation, to application form, underwriting, and claim management. Leveraging technology such as OCR, AI/ML to enhance customer experience.
Sakay
Sakay enables the analysis and navigation of informal transit networks.
Mosaic
Mosaic offers cloud-based profit optimisation solutions to the hospitality industry. Products include inventory management, POS, purchasing and analytics.
Where to get tickets for Echelon Asia Summit 2019?
Catch this stunning set of companies showcase their brilliant work and more at the Echelon Asia Summit 2019! The event is happening from 23 – 24 May, at Hall 3A, Singapore Expo, 1 Expo Drive, Singapore. We don’t want you and your team to miss out on the important insights that will be shared by our speakers there, so get your Echelon Tickets today!
With the New Protein Fund, Big Idea Ventures aims to tap into opportunities provided by growing interests in plant-based diet
A vegan-themed street art in the street of Belgrade. Image Credit: Ivana Milakovic on Unsplash
New York- and Singapore-based venture capital (VC) firm Big Idea Ventures has made the first close of its US$50 million plus fund that is aimed for companies working on the development of new protein alternatives –or meat replacement.
US meat supplier giant Tyson Food has backed the fund, which also included anchor investor Temasek.
The fund has already made its first close in March and aims to close with the targeted number within the next 12 months.
In an interview with e27, Big Idea Ventures Managing GP Andrew Ive explained that in the first stage of investment, the firm plans to invest US$250,000 in about 100 global companies.
Twenty-five to 50 of those companies will be based in Asia while the rest will be based in North America.
“Within the next two to three years, we will start looking into China and Europe,” he said.
There are three categories that the New Protein Fund is focussing on: Plant-based food products, Plant-based food ingredients and technology, and cell-based meats.
The New Protein Fund has made its first investment into Shiok Meat, a Singapore-based startup that is developing lab-grown seafood and meat.
Co-founded by Sandhya Sriram, PhD and Ka Yi Ling, PhD, Shiok Meat harvested crustacean “meat” from cells instead of animals.
Meatless market
According to a report by Zion Market Research, the global plant-based meat market will reach US$21 billion by 2025.
This might just be the reason why Tyson Food, being one of the major players in the meat industry, is making moves to expand to the plant-based market.
Andrew Ive of Big Idea Ventures. Image Credit: Big Idea Ventures
In early March, Bloombergreported that the company is set to “accelerate and develop” a new protein business line, and has even appointed a chief sustainability officer.
The New Protein Fund itself is the first venture capital fund Tyson Food has ever invested in.
When we talk about the reasons why Big Idea Ventures decided to focus on plant-based meat, Ive pointed out that people are becoming more open to a “flexible” eating habit.
“More and more people are moving towards flexitarian, plant-based lifestyle … Beyond Meat
are moving from the vegetarian section to the meat section in the store; meat-eating people are more prepared to give the products a try,” he said.
Ive said that in the next five to 10 years, there will be more companies that respond to consumers’ needs for a variety of great-tasting plant-based food, especially as consumers become more aware of the environmental and health impact of consuming meat.
This is the opportunity that Big Idea Ventures is trying to tap into as a VC firm.
In principal, as a VC firm, there are several criteria that Big Idea Ventures is looking for in a potential investment.
In addition to impactful ideas and market opportunities, they are also a believer in the importance of investing in human resource first.
“I have invested in companies where the product needs a lot of work but they have such a good team. I knew they would be prepared to improve or change the product,” he said.
As technology advances and young talent become more enterprising, startups are becoming the face of the future.
Starting a business isn’t easy and sustaining it is even harder. There are many risk factors associated with startup ventures and key guidelines that need to be followed in order to enjoy a profitable and successful business.
If you analyse and understand the risks involved and the mistakes which are likely to be commonly done, it would be rather easy for you to drive a secure and successful business.
Major reasons why startups tend to fail
Lack of demand in the market
While an innovative idea may seem interesting or fruitful to a business owner, it isn’t the case from the business perspective. The demand for that business may not be that high in the market, meaning that the startup would most likely experience a lacklustre performance.
There are chances of the business existing in abundance already or not needed at all. In either of this case, there will be no market for that business and causes the startup to fare poorly.
Misuse of funds
In a bid to prove that their startup idea is worth it, business owners tend to mismanage their funds, not looking at the after effects.
Every business owner has finances but what they need is a smart and cautious management of their finances. This is one area which becomes a root cause for failed startups. Only having money isn’t enough, putting it to its best use is important.
Managing a diverse team structure
Startups will need a multi-faceted team structure, possessing skills in diverse technologies and project management areas.
Generally, it is noted that startup business owners do not have that in-depth vision of building a collaborative team right from the beginning that is self-sufficient in terms of skills, technological knowledge and project management methods.
Even fundamental technical expertise is needed for owners to better judge the entire business scenario in the best possible way.
Offering equity to too many team members
When the startup is new, business owners tend to involve many equity shareholders in order to make the venture cash rich.
Although it might sound right at that time, it tends to get unmanageable and becomes one of the prime reasons for startup failure. Even having too many team members could lead to haphazard business functioning.
Feeble marketing strategies
After all, marketing is the key to reach out to widespread audiences. Startups need to have their marketing policies in place well in advance else they are bound to bear the brunt of it.
In this fiercely competitive world, without enough and well-planned marketing plans, there are fewer chances of business expanding far and wide.
Risk areas startup entrepreneurs faces
1. No startup offers a stable income right from the start. Entrepreneurs must be well prepared for an uneven way of income for the first few months. What is important is to sustain your business amidst throat cut competition rather than wanting a steady income.
2. Startup ventures need to be careful about competition and disruption both. Though both are inevitable and play a significant risk role in the success of any startup business, what entrepreneurs must do is keep aware of these from the beginning, to avoid its negative impact.
3. Undefined variations in the global currency could lead to a huge risk. With globalisation as the latest jargon today, entrepreneurs need to be careful while engaging in any kind of financial exchange either as a supplier or as a receiver.
4. Leaking your confidential information is yet another risk area that could create hassles. Cybersecurity is a prime area of concern for startup business owners. There is so much private information (company and self) involved that its security plays a very important role. Compromising on security could lead to disastrous results in terms of productivity, profitability and customer satisfaction.
5. Shelling out your own private finance for your startup to start off, is yet another big risk area. At the start, entrepreneurs may need to do that but what is required is enough thought to the point that if that finance is used up in business, there is nothing to fall back, on our personal front.
Key approaches for a successful startup
Have a complete focus on designing and developing the product
While indulging in any startup venture, the prime factor is the startup product itself. There should be a complete undivided focus on that, by the business owners and their teams. Thinking about other important areas like marketing, sales, finance, etc. should be done later so that there is no compromise of quality in the product build. This ensures utmost quality and standardisation, offering more chances to a successful venture.
Start off with a small base and large vision
What startups usually do is have a large end focus and planning right from the beginning. They tend to forget that they are in the startup phase. What should be done is that business owners should take small and steady steps in the start towards building a small stable and secure startup. Once that is established, there are ample of opportunities for building it big with fewer risks and more fundamental stability involved.
Perform in-depth analysis from information available
Be it risk assessment, predictive analytics, trend forecasting, etc., there are many areas that can be scrutinized in detail for better futuristic moves. There are many advanced tools available to help extract the best of information from the huge chunks of data, in your desired format. Make the most of BI and Big Data for the same.
Be a wise trend follower and grab foreseeable opportunities
As opportunities knock the door, it is very important for startup authorities to keep a close eye on them and grab them as soon as they are encountered. Of course, with a full proof thought to its repercussions, these opportunities could change the face of the business for the better. To grab these chances, startups should devote a sector of time and energy in observing and following trends in the market and understand the prevailing market scenario. They should also study the predictive future analytics to perceive what could come next.
Keep replicating success factors as the startup flourishes and grows
When a startup venture succeeds, there are certainly promising and basic success factors attached to it, that lead to its success. Once the startup is grounded and in place, business owners should purposefully try to replicate these success factors for a business to come and thereby stay grounded to the fundamental vision of the business. This set of success criteria should always be remembered and deployed in upcoming actions to be taken.
Embrace automation wherever you can
The year has seen many advancements in automation and the coming year will show many more. To stay abreast with today’s business norms, automation, wherever possible is a must. Startups need to evaluate, analyze and adapt to automation processes in whichever areas it can. This will not only increase efficiency, profitability but also ensure a cutting-edge business involvement.
Spend more time, money and energy into skilled expertise
After all, the crux of success for any startup venture is the quality that it delivers. This is possible only if there is a skilled and proficient team available to deliver the same. Good quality resources will garner successful business and will keep continuing to give good fruits as compared to efforts put.
Calculated risks are a must
As such, risk management is an art. No business can kick off without taking any risks, startups are no exception. But, yes, risks taken must be ascertained, calculated and analyzed before plunging into them. Risks would help individuals come up with innovative ideas, enhance creativity, increase productivity and thereby augment RoI for the startup venture.
Understand your client portfolio in advance
While building your startup venture, it is important to understand the client’s needs, perception, and aspiration. This forms a pillar of success for the business.
Until the customer requirements are understood in depth, it is not possible to build a solution that works as per their needs.
Create the right balance between time, money and effort
Among the three major parameters that are important for any business, it is critical to strike a balance between time, money and efforts, in order to come up with the best of results. Any of them, going haywire in proportion, will lead to an imbalance in the charted project plan.
Here you go, with the startup industry’s key risk areas, best practices and reasons for failure. Owning your own business is always an exciting, challenging and tough task. With multiple types of startups cropping up every year, the parameters to be ascertained also change year by year.
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Traditional accelerators in Thailand are not suited for edtech, as they focus more on the ‘typical tech startups’ with emphasis on synergising with the corporates’ main businesses
StormBreaker’s Accelerator Manager Pat Naranpat Thitipattakul
While its neighbours in Southeast Asia made good progress in edtech in the last few years, Thailand didn’t make much of a progress due to several reasons. A few months ago, 500 TukTuks‘s Managing Partner Krating Poonpol decided to change this, and in early 2019 he launched accelerator StormBreaker Venture to help edtech startups address various challenges.
StormBreaker’s mission is to inspire and impact the Thai education system and has support from various organisations, including Disrupt Technology Venture and KBank’s Beacon Venture Capital, to leverage edtech transform the education system in the country.
In this interview, Pat Naranpat Thitipattakul, Investment Manager at 500 TukTuks and Accelerator Manager at StormBreaker, talks about the project, its objectives, and Thailand’s edtech market.
Edited excerpts:
There is a handful accelerators targeting different kind of tech startups in Thailand, including edtech. Why an exclusive edtech accelerator is vital now?
There have been accelerators in Thailand, but not a single one focused on edtech. Many accelerator houses are the spin-off of corporates — telcos (AIS, dtac, True), banks (Digital Ventures, Krungsri RISE, etc) or conglomerates (SCG Sprint, PTT, etc). These programmes are not suited for edtech companies, as they focus more on the ‘typical tech startups’ with emphasis on synergising with the corporates’ main businesses.
From our hackathon earlier in 2018, we saw first-hand the problems and struggles faced by edtech companies. We believe that creating an exclusive edtech accelerator is vital in order to help these companies overcome challenges. The reason for this is that edtech companies require certain distinct support/help that is different from usual startups.
For example, customer acquisition. It is difficult for a lot of edtech startups to go direct to consumers because their consumers are students. They have to work with partners and go through schools/corporates, instead.
Can you share more details about StormBreaker? How is this this accelerator different from traditional edtech programmes?
Stormbreaker is different because we combine the best of both worlds — the education world and the startup world. From the education side of things, we are grateful to be able to onboard great partners such as Thailand Development Research Institute (TDRI), Thailand Education Partnership (TEP), and TCP’s Jai Krating Foundation, which is very well respected and well-connected in the education scene.
Whilst from the startup world, we leverage Disrupt and 500 Startups’s strong network to be able to onboard mentors of the highest quality to support these entrepreneurs.
What are the key objectives of the programme?
The following are the key objectives of the programme:
To equip founders with all the necessary soft and hard skills to become a great founder.
Provide the right network and connections to key players in both the education industry and the startup ecosystem.
Open up access to customers both directly and indirectly (through corporate partners).
Provide credibility, awareness and PR for the startups.
Assist and ensure these startups secure funding for future growth.
What are the different criteria for startup to apply for your programme? How is the selection process?
We’re looking for edtech startups that have the potential to solve Thai educational issues, impact as many people as possible, and have at least a functioning prototype. It could be a solution for either the education sector or HR talent development. The team must be passionate about education.
The areas we are interested in are English for All, STEM and Coding, Cloud-powered School, Teacher of the Future, reskilling professional or any other area that would solve real education pain points.
Why did 500 Tuktuk choose to partner with Disrupt Technology Venture and Beacon Venture for this project? What is the role of each company here? Can you share more details about this partnership?
Disrupt Technology Venture, founded by Krating Poonpol in 2012, aims to build the startup ecosystem in Thailand through entrepreneurship education programme and corporate innovation service, bringing Silicon Valley know-how to Thailand. Disrupt Technology Venture has over 2,000 entrepreneurs in their network.
From 500 Startups’s view, working with Disrupt Technology Venture gives them the best deal flow on tech startup deals in the country. Since Disrupt has been educating entrepreneurs since 2012, 500 Startups believes that they would be the best partner to run an EdTech accelerator.
Beacon Venture is a corporate venture capital under Kasikorn Bank, one of the leading banks in Thailand. Kasikorn Bank actively supports several education projects and they also foresee the needs for talent reskilling, especially in the digital disruption era. We both believe that edtech startups can make a lot of impact in this area. 500 TukTuks and Beacon Venture considered the potential of EdTech to transform countries and this is going to be a very interesting market in the future.
Are educational institutions in Thailand ready for tech adoption? Are there any initiatives from the government side, which aims to transform the sector through technology?
It depends. The top international schools have long adopted and integrated technology into their system. Public schools and universities are slowly following suit, as key players and incumbents are starting to realise the importance of technology in education. This is very positive for edtech companies.
We learned that many educational institutions would like to try new technologies, but due to the strict regulations, they hesitated as they do not want to take any risk. Their key performance indicators (KPIs) focus mostly on improving students test score, and does not directly promote technology adoption.
The government has launched some initiatives to promote access to education such as free online courses and infrastructure funding. There are some efforts from government side to partner with private sectors to, at the first stage, set up tech infrastructure like computers and Wifi. We hope to see more initiatives to promote EdTech adoption once the infrastructure is ready.
Affordability of and access to edtech solutions are going to be major impediment in rural Thailand. How can edtech address this challenge?
We want edtech to focus on developing the best learning solutions that provide learners with the most effective learning experience. Our partners can help them with the distribution in multiple ways.
As for affordability, if a solution is proven, our partner would consider sponsoring the edtech startup as part of their CSR initiatives. This way the startup would be able to give out some accounts for free or reduce the price for underprivileged kids.
Many edtech companies also offer freemium model.
In terms of access to edtech solutions, many CSR projects give funding to schools to allow them to build necessary infrastructure such as PC, internet and tablet. Through edtech collaboration with these CSR programs, edtech firms will be able to launch their solutions in rural areas. With the increasing trends of tech adoption and internet penetration in Thailand, we want to make education accessible for everyone.
You mentioned that your goal is to help transform the learning experience of one million people by 2020. Can you elaborate this. How are you planning to achieve this ambitious goal?
By supporting the edtech and helping them with distribution, we help them to reach as many users as possible. In 2018, we were able to reach 150,000 learners. We saw that if the solution could actually solve user pain and deliver good experience, the number of users would increase quickly through word of mouth. We will also continue to work closely with our partners in order to onboard schools.
As for the corporate sector, we help connect edtech startups to HR professionals from companies in our network. Each company has thousands of employees and we do believe that edtech is the most efficient way for companies to manage employee learning path and development.
What are some of the key characteristics of Thailand’s education sector? What are the unique challenges it faces?
Lack of qualified teachers: The system in Thailand does not fund and incentivise the best and the brightest to become teachers.
Large difference between students: There is a very large dispersion in the education of children in Thailand. The quality of education between the rich and the poor is vastly different.
There is a big focus on rote learning (memorising) and heavy emphasis on exams.
StormBreaker kicked off with five startups in September last year. How is the programme progressing?
Four of the five startups from StormBreaker’s first batch have graduated, having gone through an intense action-packed accelerator programme, and are now ready to scale up their impact (the fifth startup ‘Quest’ decided to drop out of StormBreaker, as they got an offer from another programme). Key activities in the programme include intensive bootcamp sessions & workshops, exclusive mentoring sessions, B2B meetings, and demo-day pitching.
The four startups are:
Vonder: Vondor is an educational chatbot pioneer which has already transformed the way 70,000 students learn, in addition to 30,000 more working professionals. They grew their user base of 10,000 students to 70,000 students within six months. Vonder started with a team of five in the beginning of the programme, having only one business model (B2C). Through the programme, they have discovered unmet needs in HR learning solutions, so they’re able to come up with a new business model (B2B) which generated a new income stream. They have already acquired more than 3 clients that are big corporations.
Voxy: Voxy is an English learning platform, which utilises AI for personalised learning. When Voxy joined our programme they were still new in the Thai market and had no clients back then. The founders shared with us that our programme has helped them learn how to move fast like a startup and given them access to more B2B clients. Within four months, Voxy has been able to secure B2B deals valued eight million THB and launched pilot projects with over 10 organisations in Thailand.
InsKru: insKru is uniting forces across the nation to enhance the way Thai teachers teach by disseminating ideas to over 38,000 teachers. The team started with three co-founders, who are passionate about education and they all had experiences volunteering in the education sector, which have given them deep knowledge of teacher, school and student pain points. The StormBreaker team has supported their operations, given PR visibility, and helped connect them with CSR departments of many corporations. InsKru has expanded from just the platform to an online-to-offline teacher community by arranging teacher skill development workshops in many provinces of Thailand. They successfully built an active community of teachers, who want to create an impact on Thai education. Today, their social media has over 16,000 organic shares, reaching thousands of teachers.
OpenDurian: OpenDurianis an education platform boasting revenues of over 49 million THB, this startup aims to breed more than 500,000 skilled talent to prepare and respond to the impending digital disruption. The team consists of academic professionals. The company has been in the market for more than five years. Our mentors have helped them come up with plans to launch new product in the area of professional re-skilling, leveraging their presence in the online tutoring market with over three million users, who are university students. In addition to that, joining StormBreaker has opened up the door for them to new partnerships as well as fundraising opportunities.
