Singapore’s leading property portal 99.co has announced it has inked an agreement to take over operations of REA Group’s consumer brands iProperty.com.sg in Singapore and Rumah123.com in Indonesia.

The joint venture would place 99.co as a market-leading player in Indonesia.

With the rise of Southeast Asia’s digital economy, REA Group is doubling down on the market by investing in 99.co and merging its Singapore and Indonesia assets under 99.co’s leadership.

99.co will be assuming full control of REA’s Singapore and Indonesian operations upon closing.

The joint venture will be helmed by 99.co’s senior management team, including its Co-founder and CEO Darius Cheung. 99.co will continue to operate 99.co, iProperty.com.sg and Rumah123.com consumer portals.

REA Group will also further invest an additional US$8 million in capital to accelerate growth and development.

Also Read: The real reason why you should launch your startup faster (which is not talked about)

“This is a key milestone that positions us instantly as number one in Indonesia, and well on our way to that in Singapore. Our innovative DNA plus REA’s unrivalled experience and resources make this partnership a lethal combination Southeast Asia has not seen before,” said Cheung.

REA Group, Chief Strategy Officer and CEO Asia, Henry Ruiz commented: “Over the past two years, we’ve admired the innovation and speed that Darius and his team have brought to the marketplaces that they serve. The formidable combination of our talent, best of breed technology, digital expertise and customer relationships will supercharge our ability to compete and win in Singapore and Indonesia.”

Founded by Darius Cheung in 2014, 99.co, is a fast-growing property portal in Southeast Asia, having grown its traffic 32x in the last two years.

The company raised US$15.2M in its Series B funding round led by MindWorks Venture and Allianz X in August 2019.

iProperty.com.sg and Rumah123.com are two of the most recognised property portal brands in Singapore and Indonesia, respectively.

iProperty was acquired in 2015 by REA Group, one of the largest property technology groups in the world, for US$531 million.

REA Group is a multinational digital advertising business specialising in property. It operates Australia’s leading residential, commercial and share property websites — realestate.com.au, realcommercial.com.au, Flatmates.com.au, as well as Spacely, a short-term commercial and co-working property site.

In Asia, REA Group owns iproperty.com.my, squarefoot.com.hk, iproperty.com.sg, myfun.com (China), and property review site in Thailand (thinkofliving.com). It also owns Smartline Home Loans, an Australian mortgage broking franchise group, and Hometrack Australia, a provider of data property services.

REA Group also holds a significant shareholding in property websites Move, Inc.in the US and PropTiger in India.

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I woke up with an epiphany, rushed out of bed and drew down a graph on paper. What it illustrated (below) was this simple point: “Valuation doesn’t always reflect how much work you have done unless you pass into a new phase.”

Most people talk about launching, lean-startup methodology style from the viewpoint of Customer Development Methodology to get validation.

But, no one talks about the real reason for launching, which I believe is maximising the value of your time and ability to go faster.

The traditional view of launching is good but it’s not the whole story

Google search this; you will find literature dating back to around 2007 that talks about launching to get validation from customers faster, and that you need to launch with something called a ‘Minimum Viable Product’.

Something that provides the base level of utility that customers will get just enough value to pay you as they ‘get’ your new value as opposed to competitive offerings (including none at all).

This is all completely right, though I think nuance is that I prefer Minimum Desirable Product, being something that looks a bit more polished, a little less buggy and more clearly defined in its value proposition.

The upside being if users (or customers) like it they may refer you to their friends, leading to growth, or have high-enough engagement levels for you to get more valuable feedback to test your hypothesis.

I am not going to go into detail here about MVP and MDP, I largely agree entirely with the espoused value.

Rather, there is something missing here which should make it a lot clearer as to why you need to get your product out and fundraising (assuming you do?). That is the maximum valuation you are going to achieve irrespective of how much more work you do.

Perfectionism is the root causes for not launching, but you can get to perfection if you launch faster

The most insidious thing in some great founders is perfectionism, amongst many other factors. They understand CDM and all the related theories, but they still refuse to launch.

I have never met Paul Graham, but I presume he knows more than I do on this:

“Companies of all sizes have a hard time getting software done. It’s intrinsic to the medium; software is always 85 per cent done. It takes an effort of will to push through this and get something released to users…

Several distinct problems manifest themselves as delays in launching: working too slowly; not truly understanding the problem; fear of having to deal with users; fear of being judged; working on too many different things; excessive perfectionism. Fortunately, you can combat all of them by the simple expedient of forcing yourself to launch something fairly quickly.” – Paul Graham

In the early days when it is one man and his dev in a garage, you simply don’t have resources, ergo, your ability to reach perfection is entirely unrealistic. Do you know what helps you a lot to get to near to ‘perfection’? Resources!

If I said to you now, ‘If you launch and I will give you your angel round to hire five more people, would you do it?

In most cases, yes (I did hear a funny story about Eric Reis offering a founder to launch and he would be an advisor to them and he still didn’t). What you don’t know is that it is truly a distinct possibility!

Understand the value (opportunity cost) of your time

What is key to understand is the value of your time and that you can only ever do and achieve so much. If you are a talented founder, you should be able to do more with more people in the team, right?

So if you and your co-founder spend two years developing a product, do you think that is a good use of your time? How much could you have earned as an FTE at a company and how many devs could you have paid out of your salary instead?

There really does come a point when taking the money and diluting means you can go faster and maximise the value of your time. Spending two years to build a product is ridiculous. Real learning I have heard is, “We should have raised earlier”.

When you understand how valuations really work, this will start to make even more sense.

How valuations work in the real world for early-stage companies

You have no P&L and Balance Sheet, you may not even have KPIs because you have no customers. If you have numbers, they don’t mean much and every KPI comes with an explanation.

The reality is this, valuations for early-stage startups are based on heuristics and what you negotiate, not some magic formulas.

I know this will stress out non-salesy people, but it is simply true.

There is so much uncertainty in your business and also, so little data available in Asia, that even if there were amazing benchmarks, it still wouldn’t matter. You are going to negotiate with your investors for valuation.

Now, this is going to come as a bigger shock, but the valuation expectations of the investors are based on heuristics supported with no data. These ‘rules of thumb’ change a bit depending on the market and the environment (definitely if you get a term sheet) but they sort of exist. You get lumped into very simple boxes and that’s your valuation, particularly with no customers.

Also Read: I am a full time Mom working remotely in a startup, here is how I survive

You have a great idea and a team with some mock-ups, maybe US$1 million posts. You haven’t gone live yet, but have a great product, well you get US$1 million, maybe US$2 million post. You get a couple of customers, but nothing meaningful, well that number doesn’t really change. Sorry.

It’s only when you ‘change your stars’ and put yourself in a new box that your approximate valuation range changes. Only, this costs money. As a founder said to me last week, “But I need money to get more customers!” Great team, great product, not traction, tough.

To put this in perspective, I have seen companies invest a US$1 million of their own money to create a superb product and not many customers, and then have unrealistic expectations on valuation simply because the valuation doesn’t match what the stage investors think they should be at. There is a mismatch of “the box” they want and the one they are in.

Stages of development

Let’s continue to focus on pre-revenue companies looking to do first raise. I have set out a simplified graph illustrating:

The stages of development for your product are:

1. The percentage of ‘perfect product” completion

2. Anticipated Net Promoter Score (NPS) you could expect from early-stage users/customers. Google the term, for now, I will blog on this later.

Bad MVP

I truly believe launching too slowly has killed a hundred times more startups than launching too fast, as founders lose faith and give up. However, it is also possible to launch too fast with something with no value, or perceived value.

If you go guns blazing reaching out to PR and all your contacts, you can ruin your reputation.

You launch something, anything, you get the early adopters to try it out, and drop out rates are immediate and they don’t come back with a moments thought.

You will have to do something special and reach a later stage in the adoption curve before they will give you another try. In short, your NPS sucks and it shows.

Forget about raising money here. Not only do appearances matter, but also the underlying reasons you failed will be apparent to investors.

MVP

If you follow theory to the T and launch with something your targetted user base will get some value from, you are on the right track for sure.

If you get your hands dirty and elicit real feedback from customers and keep iterating, your chances of surviving to go up a lot. Furthermore, team morale and motivation will be high and they celebrate the small wins.

Take care to do some easy wins that will add disproportionate value. A nice landing page and decent UI/X is simply required now. With all the tools and frameworks available, there is also no excuse.

On the downside, it’s not all perfect. It is fairly unlikely, given your NPS is low, that you won’t get referrals to spur your growth and save on marketing money you don’t have.

However, you will be able to get a few customers and that is super useful.

If you can show that customers have high engagement rates (time spent, DAU, etc.), you can use this to approach investors. This to me is the best time to ‘open dialogue’ with investors you want.

Go ask for ‘advice’ and see what their temperature is. Keep focussing on improving the product and getting more customers, but definitely engage investors. Your valuation, if the team is good and you understand the problem and market, will be decent.

MDP

This is your ultimate sweet spot. By this I mean you are in the ‘referral zone’ in terms of NPS, customers may actually like your product, use it and tell some friends about it.

The key thing though is, unless you are lucky to magically gain real traction (not likely) this is the best possible time to raise money.

Assuming investors are already tracking you, you come back with a fairly nice product, some customers as well as learnings as to why they use your product and may be willing to pay for it.

Also Read: How I manage my time and a team of 130 employees

Any development beyond here is really a waste of time as it won’t lead to what matters beyond here, traction (which costs cash). An extra module here, automation there is simply not quantifiable, as if you can’t measure it, you can’t value it.

Overdone or overdeveloped

How is this different from the MDP stage?

Well, your early-stage customers like you a little more, you can address more customers as features meet their needs, but more likely than not… you spent another six months to do this and got few more measurable achievements (aka traction).

These six months has taken its toll on your morale, no one is getting paid yet and you are worried about losing staff, there are more arguments. But more so, your valuation simply doesn’t reflect the time spent.

In fact, if you approached investors at MVP stage and return eight months later with no numbers to show, they may lose faith in you and tell you to go away and ‘get more traction’. I know how much founders love that response!

All the time spent is a waste of valuation and you curse the investors that don’t have the vision to invest in you and just don’t get it!

When to launch and raise

So in summary, launch when you are slightly past MVP and launch small.

Make the users you get so happy, they become customers and ideally make referrals. Do this in an unscalable way, focus on them being super happy. Reach out to a few select investors and get their feedback, they may even fund you.

When you are MDP, your value proposition is, at this point, sort of clear and users get enough value to keep using you, get on and fundraise, get the deal done. Any more product development will not lead to meaningful valuation increases.

Conclusion

You need to understand that a startup is both an art and a science. You need to work smart and hard.

You can do too much work as well as too little if you want to raise money, and make the best possible use of your time.

It just is really silly to find yourself in a position where you say, “We should have raised money earlier”.

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Smart credit startup Flowcast snags US$3M Series A funding co-led by ING Ventures, BitRock Capital [Press Release]

Flowcast, a smart credit startup powered by AI that helps financial institutions and corporates make decisions, announces that it has raised a US$3 million with additional funding from existing investors including Katalyst Ventures and Alpana Ventures.

The company noted that the proceeds of this round will be used to fund the acceleration of Flowcast’s go-to-market strategy, global market expansion especially in Singapore and the APAC region, and the continuing product development and improvement.

Flowcast offers an AI-enabled platform to power smarter credit decisions for financial institutions and corporates. Flowcast’s API-based machine learning platform harnesses alternative data to unlock credit at scale, which helps empowers lenders and corporations to extend and monitor credit that is historically unavailable with conventional lending and credit scoring methods.

Flowcast shares that it is also participating in the SAP.iO Foundry Singapore program, which aims to accelerate startups via providing them access to curated mentorship, exposure to SAP technology, and application programmable interfaces (APIs) with opportunities to collaborate with SAP customers in the Southeast Asian region.

Lao ride-hailing service app LOCA to showcase business model at Thailand’s Mekong Innovation Startup in Tourism [Eleven Myanmar]

LOCA, a ride-hailing service operating in Laos will be showcased at the Mekong Innovation Startup in Tourism (MIST) meeting in Thailand next week, as reported by Eleven Myanmar. It will represent Laos in the final pitching competition at MIST on October 8-9 in Bangkok, Thailand.

Also Read: Mekong regional initiative aims to help travel startups

LOCA is a Lao startup that claims to dominate the ride-hailing business. It has been operating since early 2018 with more than 300 cars.

The co-founder and CTO of LOCA, Souliyo Vongdala, said that tourism is a major contributor to GDP and that innovative startups will help attract more tourists to Laos.

Right now, there are two ride-hailing services in Laos – LOCA and the Cambodia-based Drive-up. These two were recently launched and it is expected there will be more in the future.

Mekong Innovative Startups in Tourism is jointly managed by the Mekong Tourism Coordinating Office and the Mekong Business Initiative.

The initiative is supported by the Australian government and the Asian Development Bank and organised by UNWTO Affiliate Member Chameleon Strategies.

Indonesian logistics startup Paxel reportedly gears up to close series A round from East Ventures, SIG, SMDV [Tech In Asia]

Indonesian logistics startup Paxel is reportedly in the dawn of closing a Series A funding round that will likely be US$7 million in total, as reported by Tech In Asia. East Ventures reportedly leads the round, with participation from Susquehanna International Group (SIG) and Sinar Mas Digital Ventures (SMDV).

In September, Paxel reportedly raised a seed round led by one of its founders, Johari Zein, who is also a founder of omnipresent logistics provider JNE. One person familiar with the matter adds that the founding team put in US$10 million of their own money in the seed round.

Paxel was founded by Bryant Christanto and Zaldy Ilham Masita. It is an app-based logistics startup providing same-day delivery services for a flat rate to several major Indonesian cities, promises customers to get their money back in the event of failure fulfilling the delivery within a certain time limit.

Nikkei acquires a minority stake in Singapore’s AI startup DC Frontiers [Nikkei Asian Review]

Japanese media group Nikkei announces that it has acquired 14.79 percent of DC Frontiers’ stake, a Singapore’s AI startup, looking to enhance data and news service scoutAsia with the collaboration.

Nikkei and the Financial Times launched scoutAsia last year, creating an extensive database of Asian companies and regional business news. Nikkei acquired the FT back in 2015.

Also Read: Singapore Press Holdings unveils AI initiative and stock photo marketplace

Founded in 2011, DCF offers the use of AI for tasks like article tagging and creating maps that illustrate relationships between companies, individuals, and investments. DCF’s AI and machine-learning technologies are aimed at improving the accuracy and efficiency of searches for news and corporate data.
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Being an entrepreneur is a lot harder than I thought — and things are even harder in Asia where there’s more stereotyping of women in society.

I thought being an entrepreneur was all about building a product or service you believe in, filling that gap in the market, and marketing and selling it as hard as you can.

But as an Asian female entrepreneur, you have to work twice — maybe five times — as hard to make people take you seriously, or let alone, believe in what you are capable of.

Not until I entered the startup world did I think women empowerment and female support was more important than ever before. With that said, here are some things I’ve learned about being a female entrepreneur in this part of the world:

1. You’ll have to surround yourself with the right people

People are what make the company — but people are also what makes your life a lot easier. Surrounding yourself with people who don’t believe in what you’re doing, whether in business or in your personal life, is a real time-waster. And I can tell you that from experience. You don’t have to convince these people why you’re building this company — that’s what you have to do for customers and investors.

Also Read: The importance of working with great co-founders

Your life shouldn’t be one giant pitching session. This is obvious for employees, but sometimes women don’t understand how important this is for people who are involved in your personal life. as well.

As a female entrepreneur, you’re already trying to beat the odds, there’s no point in adding more odds to the equation. On the other hand, surrounding yourself with people who support and believe in what you’re doing can really help your business multiply.

2. You’ll want to build a product you can talk about for hours

It doesn’t matter whether you want to build a compression algorithm or a wedding platform, you’ll need to be seriously passionate about it. My first startup idea was in finance — I really believed in it (and I still do), but it’s not something I can talk about for hours. Weddings, on the other hand, are something I’ve always loved and dreamt about as a little girl.

Just because we’re ambitious women doesn’t mean we have to prove something extreme to make a statement. If you like baking cakes or handcrafting jewellery, you can still be a fierce female entrepreneur.

3. You’ll need to use your strengths to outdo competitors

Use your femininity as your advantage. I’m not talking about sex appeal, but the ability to relate. When I first started Asia Wedding Network, I understood that there were tons of older male founders in the wedding technology space. I tapped into my femininity and really looked at the product and the world from a female perspective — after all, we are building a platform for brides.

The ability to understand your strengths and what only you could bring to the table is what will make your company better than others’.

4. You’ll need to trust your intuition

Coming off of the last point, you’re going to be intimidated by your competitors. I know, I was — they were twice my age and armed with a handful of experience. But once you learn to trust your intuition and once you see customers switching over to your product, you’ll learn to take control and trust your instincts.

5. You’ll need to learn to brag

Nobody likes people who brag, but as a woman, you’ll need to brag when the time is right. I feel that women, especially in Asia, are too humble — and that’s okay in normal circumstances. But when you’re talking to an investor or selling you product, there’s no reason why you shouldn’t be bragging about how great your company is.

Also Read: Bootstrapped and proud: Companies that don’t need VC money

Talk about the awards that you’ve received or which big company is using your product (if it’s not confidential). As Asian women, we were taught to not brag and be loud- but when you enter the male-dominated startup world, rules do not apply.

6. You’ll need role models

This sounds cliche but I feel that role models are extremely important, even if you don’t know personally know them. For me, I look up to role models, because they show that they have defied the odds, and the things I want to achieve are actually achievable. I’m not defying the odds — they’ve already done that.

Role models show you that the things you want to achieve are actually possible and that if you put your mind to it, you too can do what they’ve done — and maybe even more.

7. You’ll need to use your emotional intelligence

I’m about to stereotype us but here it goes: Women are sensitive. Now, this isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Use this emotional instinct to your advantage. If you trust your gut instinct, you can read people, customers, and investors. This will help you forecast their next steps.

Also Read: 5 lessons in leadership from top female executives

8. You’ll need to learn ‘tough love’ leadership

Women in leadership roles tend to either be pushovers or strict and unyielding to the extreme. I find that women need to show more love to their employees — tough love, that is. Yes, you need to make sure people are meeting deadlines and working hard on their projects, but you’ll also need to show some compassion when it is most needed.

I’m not talking about befriending your employees or letting them walk over you, but I’m talking about showing leniency when it matters. Nobody wants Cruella de Vil as their boss but you’re still building a company here.

Females in the Western world are founding companies, leaning in, and taking control of their #girlboss lives. It’s time for women in this part of the world to also start building great businesses, fulfilling their dreams, and start chipping away at the invisible glass ceiling.

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Mobile game company TouchTen has secured an undisclosed amount in fresh funding from investment firm Prasetia Dwidharma.

Indonesian business leaders Sheila Tiwan (CEO Carsurin) and Indra Leonardi (Kingfoto Group) also joined this round.

Existing investor CUEBIC, a leading digital marketing company in Japan, is also investing this round, as TouchTen boosts its efforts to address the often-ignored women gamers market.

“Gaming has often been considered a male-centric pastime, but our world is changing,” said TouchTen CEO and Co-founder Roki Soeharyo. 

Also Read: Token sales being abused as a fundraising tool by many, will mostly go away: LuneX VC’s Kenrick Drijkoningen

“Today, half of all mobile gamers are female. And the data shows despite lacking content that appeals to them, more women are playing games than ever before. This is what truly excites our team — to bring joy to underserved players globally through games that we love.”

Prasetia CEO, Arya Setiadharma commented: “TouchTen has extensive experience in developing mobile games. Prasetia is excited to join this round because we believe TouchTen is the perfect team to tackle the huge market of female mobile gamers. TouchTen is very data-driven in developing their games, and this is what we find most attractive about the company.”

TouchTen claims its revenue and user base grew 238 per cent and 93 per cent, respectively, in the past year. 

The company has added to its portfolio a new flagship game focused on the intersection of puzzle gamers and pet lovers for the US and European markets. The game will feature the most adorable pets in the entire puzzle genre while bringing a fresh twist on the familiar match-3 puzzle gameplay. 

The team is also working on an undisclosed project for the Indonesian market slated for release in late 2019.

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OYO Hotels & Homes, one of India’s largest hotels aggregators with significant operations in Southeast Asia, today announced that it is raising US$1.5 billion in Series F round.

RA Hospitality Holdings will infuse approximately US$700 million as primary capital, with the remaining US$800 million coming from other existing investors.

RA Hospitality is owned by OYO Founder and CEO Ritesh Agarwal. Earlier this year, RA Hospitality received Competition Commission of India’s approval to invest US$2 billion in OYO.

In order to facilitate this transaction, existing investors Lightspeed Venture Partners and Sequoia Capital are selling a part of their shareholding in OYO to help Agarwal increase his stake.

Also Read: Token sales being abused as a fundraising tool by many, will mostly go away: LuneX VC’s Kenrick Drijkoningen

A huge chunk of the money will go into continuing its growth in the US and Europe.

This round comes about a year after OYO raised over US$1 billion led by SoftBank Vision Fund. Existing investors Lightspeed, Sequoia and Greenoaks Capital also participated. New strategic partners like Airbnb also co-invested.

In a short span of six years, OYO has expanded its presence in 80-plus countries. It includes China (with presence in 338 cities and over 590,000 rooms), followed by Indonesia (presence in 100-plus cities and over 27,000 rooms).

In the UK, OYO has a presence in 30 destinations and over 3,500 rooms, and in the US in 60 cities, 21 states and over 7,500 rooms.

At the moment, OYO employs over 20,000 people.

Agarwal said: “The growth across verticals in India and globally has been phenomenal and we truly believe that we will be able to build a truly global brand out of India while ensuring that the business is run efficiently and with a clear path to profitability. Our immediate goal, however, is to make forward-looking investments so we can achieve our mission while delivering on our fiduciary responsibility to our investors by building a sustainable business.”

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Having pioneered Singtel Ventures, a corporate venture capital arm, in the late nineties and through the subsequent years of working with social enterprises, I’ve observed some commonalities and unique qualities that set successful social entrepreneurs apart.

In essence, they are extremely talented people who see opportunities in building sustainable and viable commercial businesses with a prime focus on solving social issues.

Take Singapore’s online marketplace, Bompipi.com, for example.

The business was founded on the premise of encouraging more people to give back to society, and it developed a creative and sustainable revenue stream anchored on the growing demand for affordable online grocery shopping. The founders’ passion for giving back to society then inspired an innovative reward system that allows customers to offset a part of their online shopping costs by volunteering with partner charities.

Bompipi.com was one of seven social startup ventures shortlisted to be part of a six-month-long social innovation programme called Singtel Future Makers. Its novel pitch won the hearts of the judging panel from Singtel, Singapore’s National Council of Social Service, SPD, raiSE, 500 Startups and Adrenalin Group of Social Enterprises.

Also Read: Revealed: 7 Singtel Future Makers winners set to create greater social impact

To become and stay successful as a social enterprise it requires all the essential capabilities needed in running a commercial enterprise while creating social good. The business challenges are compounded as often the social cause which they support is niche, lacks the scale or is costly to serve at the onset.

Bear in mind that you could also be serving a need where the risks, stakes (and mistakes) can be a lot higher for the end beneficiary they serve, depending on the inherent vulnerability which they face.

So, what have I learnt from two decades of working with commercial start-ups, and more recently social start-ups? They all have the same ingredients needed to become successful entrepreneurs, albeit social entrepreneurs come with the additional factors of:

Empathy

Having an extremely deep sense of understanding for the social issues that they seek to address. Often they have personally experienced the issue or through someone, they know.

Many of those whom I have met can tell a very personal story behind their causes. It’s analogous to having deep customer centricity in your business model. Going back to Bompipi.com, two of the founders grew up in families with financial difficulties and could not afford daily necessities.

Even as both men became successful businessmen, they never forgot their origins and have turned their insights into a business opportunity built upon the social cause they champion.

Purpose

Having a deeper and more grounded sense of PURPOSE that may be missing in non-social entrepreneurs. It’s this sense of purpose that will be their core foundation of resilience when the going gets really tough.

Many a time, they will ask themselves: Am I blinded by my cause and purpose, and will I ever make it through? Where do I draw the line between my purpose and cause, and the realities?

Courage

Having the capacity to deal with the paradox of making money, sometimes from the needy and vulnerable ones. Sustainability is key to staying in business and achieving positive social impact. The successful ones are those who dare to challenge the stigma of profiteering from and helping those who are vulnerable and needy.

But, vulnerability may not always mean one cannot afford. Sometimes the solution just doesn’t yet exist, even if one is willing and able to pay. Regardless, for those who cannot deal with this inherent paradox, it’s best to consider staying in the charity model.

Also Read: For social enterprise, how to balance social good with the realities of business?

That said, there are potential attributes of social entrepreneurs that can undermine their success, when:

1. They become too fixated on their cause that they cannot adapt to the realities of the situation and are unable to see opportunities to ‘pivot’, especially when their solution is too customised to a cause, making it difficult to find scale.

2. Their sense of purpose and passion toward the cause may undermine their openness, agility, and adaptability, thereby holding them back from collaborating, synergising and sometimes ceding to others who might hold the key to bringing the venture to the next level.

3. They lack organisational skills to run a growing team and don’t know how to build diversity and talent in their teams that can complement their own competencies.

Unfortunately, there are no panaceas to circumvent all of these potential pitfalls, but no successful social entrepreneur ever gets to the top alone. For most, if not all cases, there is always a mentor guiding them from behind.

What a mentor can provide is the much-needed guidance and alternative perspectives to overcome common pitfalls as the ones I’ve highlighted earlier. It’s with this belief that the Singtel Future Makers programme puts a strong focus on mobilising a diverse set of mentors from every sector. Building capability and capacity goes beyond just providing cash funding.

No doubt, the social enterprise business model will continue to be refined and evolve. But, here in Singapore and Australia, the ecosystem of social enterprise is starting to take shape and will grow from strength to strength.

Successful social enterprises can also demonstrate to larger corporations that profiting and effecting positive social changes are not mutually exclusive concepts. Only time will prove our fundamental belief that doing good is good business in the long run.

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Singapore-based maritime solutions startup Claritecs has secured an S$850,000 (US$600,000) in pre-Series A funding from INNOPORT, the corporate venture capital unit of the globally operating ship owner and ship management company Bernhard Schulte. A separate private angel investor from Singapore’s maritime industry also joined as investors.

Wong Hong Lee, CEO of Claritecs said that the company will use the funding to support product development and market roll-out.

Haymon Sinapius, Investment Manager for Asia of INNOPORT, shared, “Since our establishment, we have been seeking out high-potential, early-stage maritime and logistics startups in Europe and Asia for investment, with a view of supporting their scale-up.”

“Claritecs identifies pain points faced by the bunkering industry and addressing them with holistic digital solutions based on their strong domain knowledge.”

Claritecs is a maritime solutions startup that leverages a foundation of maritime expertise to develop digital applications for decision-makers in shipping operations and commercial management.

Also Read: PSA unboXed partners with Israeli startup theDOCK to support maritime logistics tech

Claritecs’ suite comprises BunkerMaestro, an algorithm-based SaaS platform that provides data-driven insights for bunker scheduling, aiming to increase work efficiencies and bunker fleet optimisation.

BunkerMaestro tackles the complexities of multiple grades of marine fuels required by ships to meet the IMO 2020 sulfur cap regulation. It taps on real-time data sets from Singapore Maritime Data Hub and MarineTraffic to monitor vessel movements to predict vessel arrival times and bunkering related operations.

In addition to BunkerMaestro, the company said it has also developed Auto Profiling, a tool for quick diagnostics of mass flowmeter bunkering data.

“New product innovation is a key area of focus for Claritecs. We are currently in talks with like-minded partners for possible collaborations so that we can assist our clients in their digital transformation journey,” said Wong.

Claritecs aims to raise its Series A round by the first quarter of 2020 to support its international expansion and future product development.
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Businesses with deep pockets don’t have a monopoly in reaching consumers globally. Even startups can attempt to win international customers. There are simple but effective strategies new businesses can do to generate sales globally.

They don’t require massive investments. You may have already heard about them, but haven’t paid attention, thinking that they’re too basic and generic.

1. Optimised e-commerce site

Anyone can put up an online store and start selling to prospective international customers, although not everyone knows how to optimise their e-commerce operations.

That’s why many end up failing to get the results they desire. However, optimising an e-commerce venture is not that difficult.

Take note of the following pointers.

1. Search engine optimisation is an essential part of establishing an online presence, more so in launching an e-commerce operation.

Without it, it will be difficult to rank high in search engine results, which means attracting potential customers is going to be challenging. You need to research the relevant keywords you can use to make your site searchable online. You then have to place these keywords in your content, metadata, headers, and other parts of your website.

2. It’s not enough to have an online store if your goal is to attract global customers. Potential buyers in different countries or regions use different languages.

How do you expect them to consider buying your products if they don’t understand the language you use in your site? That’s why you need to localise.

Localisation, however,  is not just about translating your content from one language to another. It entails a conscious effort to present your store and products in ways that make them more relatable to your intended audience.

This means using slogans, catchphrases, pop culture references, idioms, and other textual elements that are more familiar to the target customers.

At the same time, it calls for the removal or replacement of lines that are deemed offensive or unfamiliar to the intended customers.

Localisation can be tedious, but it’s not too difficult. You need to find someone who understands the language and culture of the new market you are targeting.

Addressing Payment Difficulties. Making payments faster, easier, and less complicated encourages more sales to international customers.

Provide several payment methods so there’s at least one way customers would find convenient. Eliminate the currency exchange barrier by offering a dynamic currency conversion service or an automatic online calculator.

Quality Customer Service. Customer service starts with marketing to post-sale customer care. It commences in extending courtesy and patience when answering the inquiries of potential customers.

It also includes the way you treat customer complaints and suggestions to improve your service. Encourage customers to post reviews of your products or store through a comments/reviews section and on social

Don’t expect to succeed in your optimisation efforts in your first try. Often, there are many areas where you can still improve. As such, you need to monitor your e-commerce operations regularly.

Track the number of visitors to your site, the pages they visit, the ways they reach your site, the bounce rate, the duration of their stay on your pages, and various other data. These will help you pinpoint the flaws and introduce the necessary tweaks.

Making Things Easier: You may have an excellent product and an enthusiastic customer service team, but you may not have the expertise in making your business easily searchable online.

There’s nothing wrong with hiring a third party to do SEO and localisation for your business if you get a significant international sales to boost in return.

2. Localised online marketing

Online marketing encompasses several digital marketing strategies, including email marketing, social media marketing, and online ads (displayed on sites, blogs, games, and video streams).

If you are trying to reach out to a global audience, you can’t just use one language for all of your marketing materials. Additionally, a simple translation is not enough. Your online marketing should be localised to suit different regions or countries.

In localisation, the marketing content is not only converted into a different language.

Some words, expressions, references, or themes may be modified to make them more appealing to the target market or to avoid things that may be considered offensive or inappropriate. Images, symbols, or parts of a video may also be changed for the same reasons.

Making Things Easier: Again, you have the choice to entrust the localisation of your online marketing campaign to reputable digital marketing companies with a good track record in localisation. You don’t have to do everything on your own.

3. Participating in trade organisations and events

On the non-online side, you can also boost your sales to international customers by getting involved with nonprofit and governmental organisations created to help exporters.

In the United States, for example, there’s the US Chamber of Commerce, the United States Commercial Service,  and Export.gov, which assist businesses that are trying to break into the international market.

You can also find organisations that specifically facilitate trade to certain countries. For American companies that are planning to expand to South Korea, for example, the American Chamber of Commerce in Korea can extend some help.

Additionally, you can participate in trade shows designed to connect exporters or businesses that target global customers with prospective customers and other businesses.

These shows serve as a platform for meeting business partners or potential customers. They provide excellent networking opportunities. They can also serve as a way to learn about competitors and obtain ideas useful in operating a business and attracting new customers.

In summary

Optimising e-commerce operations, localising an online marketing campaign, and getting involved with trade organisations and events are effective methods for gaining customers from abroad.

Startups don’t need massive amounts of resources to penetrate the international market. With the ways discussed above, attracting global customers should be fairly easier.

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Join our e27 Telegram group here, or our e27 contributor Facebook page here.

Image Credit: Kyle Glenn

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With Bitcoinprice plummeting and many crypto companies and funds shuttering, 2018 was a year of reckoning for blockchain. But in 2019, it’s showing signs of a rebound; the total market capitalisation of cryptocurrencies has doubled since January.

These signs augur well for blockchain, and Singapore-headquartered LuneX Ventures looks to cash in on this vast opportunity. A US$10-million blockchain and cryptocurrency-focused arm of Golden Gate Ventures, LuneX has been investing in companies building the new open financial system and Web 3.0. It has also been appointed as co-investment partner of SG Innovate.

Last week, e27 had a chat with Kenrick Drijkoningen, Founding Partner of LuneX, who shared with us insights on the current crypto and blockchain landscape.

Edited excerpts below:

What triggered Golden Gate Ventures to launch a separate fund for blockchain investments?

We looked at the blockchain and crypto ecosystem in 2016 when one of our investees Omise was preparing for the token sale. I looked deeper into the ecosystem. This is when I realised that blockchain has the potential to become revolution — similar to how the different internet industries, including content and telecom businesses.

We looked at the underlying tech and what blockchain and crypto could do. Over the next 10-20 years, this is the next iteration of the internet that will disrupt asset businesses. Money is its first applications, but there are many more applications. It can be in smart contracts, we can digitise value now, and transfer it from peer to peer without the central third party.

Blockchain and crypto also have the potential to disrupt major industries in this world. That being said, we are early in this ecosystem; it is only ten years since Bitcoin was invented. It is a very niche and specialised field. There are are no mainstream applications just yet, so that needs a very specialised approach because the companies focused on this industry are earlier stage.

It’s just infrastructural blockchain and crypto solutions. At the same time, our LPs might not be comfortable with this kind of exposure. So we created a separate US$10-million fund. We are still in the fundraising mode until November.

US$10 million is a tiny amount. Why did you not aim for a bigger fund size? Also, does LuneX have the same LPs as Golden Gate?

A couple of things. As I mentioned, many of the companies in this ecosystem, particularly in Singapore, are still early stage. So are in the US. There are a few companies that are in the later stage, like Coinbase and Gemini. There is no such thing in Singapore yet.

The other thing is that investors who are looking to invest in this ecosystem would like to have some exposure. However, they would not allocate as much capital as they would to a traditional VC, which has a proven, tested model.

Also Read: A layman’s guide on how bitcoin is aiming to transform the global economy

As for LPs, there is some overlap, but it’s mostly new LPs.

What are Lunex’s investment thesis, mandate and outlook?

Our philosophy is that we are still in the very early stage of this ecosystem. If you think of a pyramid of how this ecosystem looks, at the base layer, there are protocols like Bitcoin, Ethereum or any other chain. These are the basis of which the rest of the ecosystem will be built.

Almost 50 per cent of our fund will be invested in tokens because the base layer of this ecosystem has no equity. These are distributed, permissionless networks that operate on a token model, and there is no company to invest in. So you need exposure to the tokens and the growth of those particular protocols.

The second layer — and that’s where we invest on the equity side — is the infrastructural level. It includes everything from new exchanges to custody providers to KYC/AML to wallets. Basically, this whole layer is to make things work. That’s why we invest in it.

And after that, it could come in five years or so — you will start seeing applications emerging from that layer. We are not investing in the application layer too much yet. Eventually, from the applications, you can get a fully-fledged new financial system, which is kind of an eventual goal of this whole ecosystem

So you invest both in blockchain and crypto companies.

Correct. If you make a comparison again with the early days of the internet — you had both internet and intranet. AOL, for example, initially launched their permission version of the internet because an open web was too scary. So they thought they could launch a better version.

But all the innovation happened on the open, permissionless internet. And the same thing here. Permission blockchains, corporate blockchains –we are not interested in those. We are interested in open, permissionless chains such as Bitcoin, Ethereum etc. and the services around those.

Which are your target geographies?

Our mandate is global. So we can invest anywhere. We’ve done two deals in the US and one in Korea. But we are very focused on Singapore because we are based here, we have contacts and access here. We can help our portfolio companies much better here. And also because we have a partnership with SGInnovate on their SG Equity co-investment scheme. It means on qualified deals, we get matching co-investment from them, on which we get to retain some of the upsides upon exit of such companies.

So we prefer to invest in Singapore. But if there is a good company abroad, we can also invest in it.

Can you throw more lights on your partnership with SGInnovate?

As I mentioned, we get added upside upon the exit of a company we co-invest in. The matching is either on a 1:1 basis or 3:7 basis, depending on the nature of the company.

There are multiple benefits to this; SGInnovate is well-connected within the local ecosystem and has a massive portfolio. They are also well-connected with the regulators. So I think it’s a great combination and an excellent partnership to have.

Crypto has been going through a tough phase. How do you look at its journey from an investment point of view?

That’s why we are a long-term venture capital fund, not a short-term focus fund. Massive technologies don’t develop from one year to the next. It takes time. Just like the internet didn’t happen from one year to the next. So we see it as a much longer-term time horizon.

But I think tremendous progress has already been made. If you consider the fact that Bitcoin itself was invented only ten years ago and last week they were talking about it at IMF. It was talked about in the US congress. The President of the US tweets about it. I think it has come a long way very quickly. It’s not a short-term thing; it has a very long term outlook. And it’s normal to have the cycles that this industry goes through.

And again there is an analogy to the internet. Everybody got too excited too quickly about the internet in 2001, and there was a big crash. But it was by no means the end of the internet. It was just a start. You could have picked up Amazon shares for a few dollars back then, and you would have done very well. We are in a similar position right now.

Many people believe that token sales are a scam. What’s your opinion on that?

There are multiple lenses to look through that. Initial Coin Offerings/Initial Exchange Offerings/Security Token Offerings are a way to kickstart a permissionless network, but there are many degrees of black and white here.

In the boom, we went through many of those token sales, which were unnecessary for the product they were trying to build. Yes, there were a lot of scams involved. But there were also a few that made sense. So I would say 90 per cent of them were unnecessary or scams. Look at Ethereum. They had to bootstrap the network this way, and they also had a valid use case.

Are you bullish about the future of token sales?

No. I think they will mostly go away. A lot of people abuse them as a fundraising mechanism.

And these tokens are only needed for these layer one protocols. There are network effects that are starting to emerge. At some point, there will be a couple of winners at this protocol level –whether it’s Bitcoin or Ethereum, or some of the other ones.

Also Read: Is Cardano the best cryptocurrency to invest in?

And then, all the innovations will happen on these winners as developers will move there. And it will be too hard for any newcomers to catch up once these things mature. And there will be no less or no need for token sales.

What will be the alternatives for token sales?

I think you will see regulators catching up and regulatory frameworks coming in place, and it will move to something like security tokens. It’s a little bit outside of what we are focusing on.

Security tokens are tokenised versions of equity. They make it easier for people to contribute funds and exchange shares over the internet. They will look somewhat like equity with the corresponding right attached to those as well. But that will involve a lot of legal work, a lot of service providers, a lot of regulatory clarity. You get tokens, but they are classified as security.

Why is Asia critical to the global crypto conversation?

I think the whole industry is so new that a lot of these remains to be seen. A lot of tech talent is based in the US, so you see it emerge there.

But at the same time, the regulators are very slow in the US, but their counterparts in Singapore are open-minded and friendly. I do see Singapore emerge at the moment as a leader in this ecosystem.

Although I think it’s a little bit too early to tell where it’s going. You will see many different hubs emerging. Obviously, it’s San Francisco in the US, Switzerland and Malta in Europe, and in Asia, it’s South Korea which is very much at the forefront, and of course Singapore.

I always say that the US and Singapore are opposite. As I said, in the US the regulator is slow, but the private sector is very forward-thinking and innovation-driven. In Singapore, it’s the regulator who is forward-thinking, but the private sector is a little bit slower in terms of trying to push for innovation.

In your view, what is the future of cryptocurrencies in a very long term?

In a very long term, I think we are building a new parallel financial ecosystem. And I believe that gradually, more and more people will move to this permissionless form of finance.

The biggest use case is still Bitcoin as a non-sovereign, non-censorable permissionless currency. That’s a massive use case in itself. And there is a whole ecosystem, the entire industry that can be built on top.

So that’s just one area, and I think that’s the most significant use case for the foreseeable future. There is going to be a lot of other use cases as well if you think of Ethereum as an example in terms of smart contracts and execution. And there is a lot of things that can happen there.

In terms of industry, gaming might be one of the first to start implementing this.

Also Read: What does cryptocurrency mean for your small business?

But the basic premise is that you can now transfer any value, any asset from person to person without a third party in between and without a custodian. We can build all kinds of automatic execution solutions on top of that. And that has implications for many different things, including legal, fund management, financial services, gaming. Anything that touches assets will have to deal with this.

If you look at some Asian countries, they accept blockchain but completely banned cryptocurrencies. Do you think these countries are missing out on tremendous opportunities?

Yes, exactly! Because cryptocurrencies or tokens are the application. Blockchain itself is not that interesting. It’s a slow form of a ledger.

What gives these things value and application is that nobody is in control of it, nobody can stop it and reverse. And the future application of that is the actual token. So Bitcoin is the money, Ether is a transaction mechanism, some consider it also money. These assets will be in the form of tokens. Blockchain itself is an excellent term, but it’s just the means to get into the censorless, permissionless world of transferring assets.

Do you think cryptocurrencies are over-regulated in some countries and it’s not ideal for their development?

Well, it depends on how you look at overregulation. I think it’s vital that regulators clarify and make things clear without being too prohibitive of the technology. Singapore is doing an excellent job with that.

Obviously, some places are trying to ban it altogether. If you look at India, for example, it is completely illegal to have crypto. And I think it speaks about the power of cryptocurrencies. If they weren’t powerful, then they wouldn’t bother to ban it. But there is something compelling in them that they see as a threat to the financial system, to the sovereign control of central banks and governments. This new system becomes a threat to it.

I think as long as the regulators are measured and reasonable and open for innovation, that’s the most crucial part. There is a lot of game theory involved here as well. If you, as a country, ban this ecosystem altogether, you are going to lose out on a lot of talent.

Tech businesses are the main source of economic growth as we’ve seen in the build-up of the internet, the largest companies in the world today (FAANG stocks) are all tech businesses that emerged from the growth of the internet as the US embraced the technology in the ’90s. At that time this was not obvious and it could have gone the other way if rules on exports of encryption had not been relaxed. As a result, capital and talent assembled in Silicon Valley.

Similarly, today if governments are too prohibitive in allowing innovation in the crypto space to naturally occur, entrepreneurs will choose other jurisdictions to build their businesses. Arguably talent is even more mobile these days and will pick countries that provide regulatory clarity, capital and a deep talent pool to start their businesses.

Do you think its valuation of Bitcoin will, as John McAfee predicted two years ago, hit US$1 million in future?

Bitcoin is by all measurements is the best currency humans have ever invented. It’s more limited in supply, and it is easier to store, carry and transfer.

Bitcoin is digitally native, and it can’t be censored. It’s more restricted in supply than even gold.

Of course, it’s very volatile at the moment because it’s an early-stage technology. It exists for only ten years, while gold has existed for thousands of years.

So if you assume those things to be correct — and those are entirely factual things — then you can come up with some kinds of valuation methods.

An interesting model is being discussed on social media these days by a guy called Plan B. It’s basically looking at the stock-to-flow model of monetary assets.

So if you think if gold is a monetary asset and it has been there for thousands of years, why is gold a financial asset? It’s not just because it’s a rare asset; rare is not sufficient for something to gain monetary value. The stock-to-flow needs to be low, meaning the new supply that comes above ground every year needs to be very small compared to the existing stock.

So if people store value in it, they know that even if the value raises, you can’t just print or extract 10-20 per cent more every year. That is restricted by physics and economics. Gold has value based on that, and you can also apply the same model to Bitcoin. The halving that occurs every four years in Bitcoin with the next one coming up in May 2020, when the supply growth gets cut in half, eventually to zero.

Also Read: What’s in store for blockchain and cryptocurrency?

And if you extrapolate that model next year, it will get to between 50-100 thousand per Bitcoin and four years it 10Xs from there again. So I see it as a real possibility. It will not be smooth and exact. And you will have these huge runs and massive falls. But that’s just the process of monetising the new asset.

What does Quantum Supremacy mean for the future of cryptocurrencies? Do you think it will kill blockchain?

I’m by no means a computer scientist or engineer, so in terms of actual cryptography and technical details of that, I have to give it a miss.

But I’ve looked into this and listened to the experts and people who know much more about this. I think it’s overblown. Quantum resistant algorithms can and will be developed before quantum computing is even here to crack them.

By all means, we are many years away from having commercially available quantum computing. Researchers are already well on the way in terms of developing these quantum-resistant algorithms.

And if you look at history, it’s always a race between the cryptography and people trying to break it.

Some people believe blockchain will make banks obsolete. What do you think?

I don’t think it’s going to happen shortly. But what you will see is an infrastructure inversion where banks will run on top of these open, permissionless chains as service providers. Right now, you need the banking system to gain access to crypto.

At some point, this infrastructure will invert, and all banks will be service providers on top of the blockchain. A lot of people don’t understand blockchain and think it’s too risky for them. They want a third trusted party to be the custodian and to manage their money for them. And that could be some form of banks. Whether it’s a native crypto bank or some of the existing banks that will adapt to new business models, that remains to be seen. But the infrastructure will invert.

In the beginning of the internet, you needed phone companies to dial into the internet. And right now, all phone calls are routed over the internet. Us being a primary example right now. So this infrastructure completely inverted. And I think you will see something similar for the transfer of value and money.

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Image Credit: LuneX Ventures

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