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From the contributor community: On scaling your startup, serving the next billion in SEA, and more …

Contributor posts

Words of wisdom from founders

3 lessons from a founder who scaled his startup to 13 markets in five years by Kosuke Sogo, CEO and co-founder of AnyMind Group

As a company, we started in the advertising industry, but shortly after, expanded into influencer marketing and publisher ad monetisation.

In the past year, we expanded into the direct-to-consumer (D2C) space with products for cloud manufacturing, e-commerce enablement, and logistics management. We started with one product, but have expanded that to seven.

All this happened within a period of five years whilst scaling our operations from one market then to 13 markets today.

Throughout this time, there were various learnings for us, let me share three of them.

Entrepreneurship is at an all time high, but are you doing it right? by Julien Labruyere, co-founder and CEO, Sleek

Earlier, the government allocated S$8.3 billion to support Singapore’s Transformation and Growth Strategy, which included S$300 million for the Startup SG Equity co-investment scheme.

A strong appetite for entrepreneurship is encouraging and essential as it drives innovation and creates new opportunities for Singapore’s economic recovery.

But with so many startups unable to survive past the first year, building lasting success is easier said than done. Here are three best practices to bear in mind.

The key digital marketing tips to help small businesses thrive by David Fairfull, CEO, Metigy

Understanding online Asian markets is an important part of many digital marketing campaigns for an important reason. By the end of 2020, an estimated 989 million people had access to the internet in China, followed by 696 million people in India.

Those two countries alone make up 36 per cent of the total number of internet users in the world. When the rest of the Asian market is added, it becomes even clearer why understanding trends in these regions is so beneficial.

Here, we delve into the three digital and social media marketing trends for small-to-medium-sized businesses in Asia looking to get ahead of the curve.

The power of the fintech world

Fintech companies targeting the next billion users are living a pipe dream. Here’s why by Saurya Simha Velagapudi, Startup Consultant

When you’re addressing an incredibly diverse market such as the next billion, you have to find the common denominator that you can turn into a product– not culture, language or market size. It’s money.

However, fintech, in its most common form, digital payments, is a solution looking for a problem for the next billion. People like cash! There are significant societal problems that result from cash, but it is beneficial to many folks.

So, why are all these companies and governments still trying to push for it?

They see the population from the top-down. They see a world full of potential Chinas – a country where nearly 40 per cent of GDP flows with no visibility to the government at all. That terrifies many governments and they want a handle on it.

How NFT is bringing ownership of digital assets back to content creators by Kenneth Hu, CTO at Formosart.io

Moreover, today Instagram blocked your account, or the App Store removed your app, or even Facebook reduced its reach. You can report it to the platform but it does not mean your problem can be resolved, so the final decision is not in your hands.

A game player bought a virtual treasure in a certain game. This object appears to belong to the game player, but he cannot let the game player decide whether it can be used on other platforms. The reason is that the ownership of these digital assets does not belong to the individual creator or purchaser, but is dominated by various platforms.

However, NFT is a solution that allows the ownership to really return to the creator’s hands when creators can really decide whether to put their creativity on the platform or not.

Life in a pandemic

How COVID-19 was a blessing in disguise for these Vietnamese startups by Duyen Tran, PR at Loship

Consumer spending has plummeted, and even F&B and food delivery services have been suspended. The government is having a hard time dealing with a dilemma: how to keep the economy going while at the same time shutting it down to protect people from infection.

In face of adversity, that’s when the DNA of entrepreneurs comes into play. And the resurgence of COVID-19 is another opportunity for entrepreneurs to display their grit, tenacity, and flexibility to adapt to an evolving situation.

For some high-potential Vietnamese startups, this is not the time to stand still and just plan for survival.

How to ensure your digital transformation will serve your ROI by Jacob Davis, Revuze

Digital transformation, which focuses on staying relevant in the eyes of customers, gaining an edge on the competition, streamlining internal processes, reducing overhead costs, and improving ROI, is the new approach of utilising a novel or existing technology that can help to improve or create a process, product, or experience which yields potential business desirability.

Your main objective must be how to improve customer experience by using technologies such as AI, machine learning, analytics, and self-service. While doing this, you must be able to measure your ROI.

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