103rd place out of 146 countries (or second-to-last among our ASEAN neighbours) — that is how far behind Malaysia currently is on the World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap Index.
While our gender parity has progressed over the years in areas like life expectancy or higher education, Malaysia still lags behind on many fronts in women’s empowerment: namely economic participation and female representation in positions of leadership.
Whether consciously or subconsciously (or both), we still live in a world where women bear the brunt of gendered stereotypes. These come in many dated forms: that a woman’s primary role is to take care of the home, that pregnancy is a liability to a company, and that a mother is incapable of balancing both a successful career and a happy family.
Inevitably, these misconceptions have bled into a world of work where 72 per cent of Malaysians have witnessed or experienced gender inequality. Outright discrimination may be rare, but more often than not, women tend to have to work harder to earn their rightful seat at the table.
The many-layered biases faced by the Malaysian woman
From the “we don’t mean it that way” excuses to the “learn to take a joke!” remarks, women are often made to feel like their emotions have to be justified or be otherwise dismissed. This is especially true for societies like ours; I find that the long-running struggles of Malaysian women go beyond just gender or marital status.
The struggles they face are layered.
Living in a country as wonderfully culturally diverse as ours, Malaysian women are sometimes also confronted by an additional layer of bias: race and ethnicity. Additionally, due to being brought up in a more collectivist country, there is this strange expectation that they should be “more docile” or “more giving” — putting wider interests over their own, and even at the expense of their own.
It is especially important for workplaces to realise that these seemingly small incidents of gender-coded bias will add up and that its consequences never stop at the individual woman. This contributes to widening the gender pay gap, limiting the representation of women in work and leadership, and worse: missing out on the far-reaching positive impact women can have on business and the workforce.
In a survey conducted by McKinsey in The United States of America, titled Women In The Workplace Year 2022 Report, women leaders do more to support employee well-being and foster inclusion. This is critical to any organisation because it improves employee satisfaction and ultimately, increases retention.
Greater gender diversity is not merely fulfilling a quota. It means more perspectives and more creativity, which fuels growth and translates to a more sustainable trajectory for businesses in any industry. Bringing a more empathetic and empowered workforce to the table, female leaders are also uniquely positioned to help connect businesses beyond a purely transactional level.
Empowering women at work starts as early as the recruitment
Malaysia has already taken steps to support a more equitable and inclusive world of work for women, such as drafting the Gender Equality Bill and the very recent amendments to the Employment Act, which protects pregnant women from being unfairly dismissed from their jobs simply for being pregnant and also have their maternity leave days extended.
While this is a commendable step in the right direction, I still feel there is room yet for improvement — because these measures are reactive to issues that already exist in the workplace rather than proactively nipping them in the bud. Having been deeply involved in recruiting solutions throughout my time in HR, I believe that the greatest push for gender equality at work starts from the very beginning of the funnel: even before the hiring stage.
It is imperative that organisations strive to make purely merit-based hiring decisions. To do this, every stage of the process — from selection criteria all the way down to the job descriptions — must be gender-neutral and skill-focused.
Even a small sentence encouraging women and underserved communities to apply (which is very popular on platforms like LinkedIn at the moment!) can make a difference in diversifying the company’s pool of applicants.
The team of recruitment specialists and interviewers must also represent the diversity they hope to see in the workplace. When fairness and inclusion are then constantly at the heart of their decisions, this can make a positive difference even when filling top executive positions! In fact, this was the very basis behind CXL’s Executive Search platform, which is driving gender inclusivity and diversity in HR recruitment solutions.
Beyond representation in the recruitment stage, it is also vital that women are actively connected to female mentors and leaders from the onboarding process onward. Opportunities for women in senior-level positions to take ownership of empowering other women in the workplace is a strong catalyst not just for their personal growth but also for broader cyclical change.
Moreover, the upskilling programmes and resources made available for employees should also take into account the challenges faced by women at work, enabling them to better navigate the very nuanced world of business and leadership.
Multinational corporations may find it easier to allocate resources to drive these changes (albeit with less flexibility), whereas SMEs and startups are more likely to implement more far-reaching but smaller-scale measures. Although the scale of implementation may be different depending on the size and nature of the business, what ultimately matters is that affirmative action is taken now.
It is no longer an if but a must in the transformation of employment for the better: closing the gap between companies and best-fit talents — plus the gap of gender inequality towards a more inclusive world of work.
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Editor’s note: e27 aims to foster thought leadership by publishing views from the community. Share your opinion by submitting an article, video, podcast, or infographic
In this episode, we are excited to welcome Jeffrey Bleich, Chief Legal Officer at Cruise, a self-driving tech company. Bleich is a prominent attorney, and a former partner at both Munger, Tolles & Olson and Dentons. In his remarkable career, he has also served as special counsel to former President Barack Obama and as a US ambassador to Australia. In addition to this, he was a former board chair at PG&E.
In our conversation, Bleich shares the story of his time serving as US Ambassador to Australia, the importance of trust-building in international relations, why over-indexing on English is a common mistake when expanding to other countries, why thinking long-term is key to a successful global expansion strategy, and considerations to take before hiring local counsel.
The capitals of major Southeast Asian markets: Kuala Lumpur, Manila, Jakarta, Ho Chi Minh, Bangkok, and Singapore
My fascination with what leads to the success of startups across various regions dates back to my Master’s studies in Denmark. During that time, I was lucky enough to receive a scholarship for a field trip to Hong Kong, where I studied startup success factors in Asia.
The scholarship took me to Hong Kong Polytechnic University, where I interviewed many local founders on what it takes to be successful in Asia.
After a few weeks of collecting data, I relocated to Bali, Indonesia, where I stayed until my Master’s thesis was complete. Bali felt like a great place to research, write, and simply enjoy life.
At the time, I thought my stay in Southeast Asia (SEA) would be brief, and I would return to Denmark once done. Yet, seven years later, I am writing this essay out of Singapore.
Over the years, I have learned much and changed my perspective on various topics. Still, one thing remains the same — my view is that specific business models, and products are particularly well-suited for Southeast Asia.
The region’s distinctiveness gives rise to specific challenges and opportunities, which must be considered when launching a new venture or entering the market.
For example, OpenAI and its groundbreaking work in the field of artificial intelligence could never have originated in Southeast Asia. Unfortunately, the region lacks the engineering talent to develop such complex AI research.
On the other hand, a successful Southeast Asian startup like GoJek might not find the same level of success in, say, Denmark. The European markets are vastly different. The average user would likely feel overwhelmed by the million options of services offered by GoJek. Western audiences prefer minimalistic and clean user interfaces that solve one problem at a time.
In Asia, people are comfortable with an overload of information, features, banners, instant communication, and notifications. Perhaps most importantly, the high standard of living in most western countries would not be able to sustain GoJek’s unit economics.
To top it all, founders and investors in Southeast Asia prefer proven business models. The market is hard enough the way it is. Finding technical talent is a challenge. The internet connection is not always stable outside of big cities. Many regulations are vague and frequently changed.
Even the cost of starting a company continues to be high in countries like Indonesia, the Philippines, and Vietnam. The purchasing power of the average user is considerably lower than in Europe and North America. Each country speaks a different language, making localisation a challenge.
While there are many significant similarities between Southeast Asian cultures, there are also quite a few differences, increasing the complexity of localising products and business models. I can keep on going about the challenging nature of the region, but you got the point, building a startup here is really hard.
“This is a particularly challenging market for founders to get started,” Abheek Anand, Managing Director of Sequoia Southeast Asia
With all of this in mind, I thought it would be valuable to dive into what strategies increase the probability of success in SEA.
Critical factors for building a successful business in Southeast Asia
Throughout the past seven years, I have seen several strategies again and again when talking to founders across the startup ecosystem of SEA. So I thought, why not summarise my findings and share them with the broader community?
The levers I have noticed to work are:
Leverage a tested business model
Adopt low-pricing
Align incentives
Expand regionally
Localise
Let’s explore each lever in detail.
Leverage a proven business model
It’s not a secret that investors and founders in SEA have an appetite for proven business models.
What do I mean by that?
In plain language, copying business models and products that have been widely successful in developed markets.
Perhaps the best example of this approach is Rocket Internet. The company entered Southeast Asia in 2012, aiming to launch one new venture per quarter. Although keeping track of all the companies Rocket launched in the region is challenging, some well-known ones include Zen Rooms, Zalora, Lazada, Food Panda, Lamudi, and Lyke.
Although many of those ventures failed, some were quite successful, i.e., Lazada and Zalora. The one common thing amongst all those startups was that Rocket attempted to replicate a proven business model and tailor it for the Southeast Asian market.
A proven business model helps you raise capital faster. In turn, your one goal as a founder is to focus purely on execution; the playbook has been written,n and the money is in the bank. Not to mention, it’s a lot easier to find great ops and business development talent in Southeast Asia as opposed to product and engineering.
Adopt low-pricing strategies
When I first arrived in Southeast Asia, I immediately noticed the price sensitivity. Even in B2B capacity, and regardless of how well-funded or successful your counterparty is, negotiating heavily is a common practice.
Let’s take a few examples, highlighting LinkedIn and Slack.
Not too long ago, I met a few people from LinkedIn who mentioned that Indonesia and India are the only markets where the company offers discounts globally. Many large technology companies are adopting this trend of highly localised pricing.
Another example that comes to mind is Slack. While negotiating with their APAC team, I learned that the headquarters location of a company could result in a 60 per cent reduction in pricing (i.e., India VS Singapore).
That’s not surprising, given the lower standard of life across SEA. Let’s take the average monthly salary in the region excluding Singapore (being an outlier), which comes to about US$1360. With a large and youthful population of over 685 million, many business owners prefer to hire more staff rather than pay for expensive software or hardware that has a promise of “productivity” or “saving time.”
When it comes to B2C, that dynamic is amplified quite a bit. For example, e-commerce platforms have been having a frenzy of shopping events to lure in consumers.
Guide to e-commerce promotions in Asia.
This is also evident in the hotel and travel industry. My first job in Indonesia was as the Head of Marketing for a travel startup. Back then, we faced intense competition from heavily discounted online travel agents, ultimately leading to the company’s closure.
I vividly recall an experiment where we listed several free rooms on our website. We promoted the campaign as a treasure hunt and let people explore our listings to find the free rooms, which caused the entire site to crash due to the massive influx of traffic.
Aligning incentives
In a market where salaries are relatively low, anything that can boost your income is appreciated and grows virally. To illustrate, I will provide two examples, one in ride-hailing and the other in mobile games.
Gojek
GoJek started as a ride-hailing app but has since expanded to offer various services beyond transportation. The company addresses a significant issue as most markets in Southeast Asia lack a reliable public transportation system.
Additionally, Gojek provides a means for drivers to earn a livelihood without specialised education. Currently, GoJek “employs” over two million drivers who rely on the platform for their income and appreciate the flexible employment opportunities it provides.
In developed markets, ride-hailing drivers often use apps like Uber and Lyft to earn extra money. In contrast, many Gojek drivers rely entirely on the company to make a living in Indonesia.
The local government also benefits from increased employment rates and support in solving significant problems in the transportation system.
The easiest way to understand how the game works is to imagine CryptoKittes and Pokemon having a baby. The gameplay involves collecting and battling digital creatures called Axies, which are tokenised as NFTs. Players earn valuable NFTs by playing well and can sell their characters for profits that can be used to purchase game tokens or converted into cash.
Axie is especially popular in emerging markets, such as the Philippines, Cuba, and Venezuela. It provides livelihood opportunities for people who play it full-time and earn around US$800 per month. To onboard financially vulnerable players, the game developers have created “scholarship” programs that loan out Axies in exchange for sharing tokens earned from wins. There are about 40 Axie scholarships that I know of, which have created a brilliant way to onboard people who cannot afford the onboarding fees.
Axie took off in the Philippines, where many people are playing to supplement or entirely replace their income source. People who play full-time can earn about 200 SLP tokens daily at a rate of US$0.2 which comes to US$800 per month. That’s not impressive income for developed markets, but in developing markets is a no-brainer, and many people rushed to play during the pandemic.
Where people search for Axie Infinity the most around the world, according to Google
In both examples, we see startups that have found ways to share revenues with people using the platform. In markets where the living standard is low and many people do not have access to a great education system, such platforms thrive.
Expanding regionally from the offset
Expanding early is a common strategy in Southeast Asia. Despite the large size and population, your target market might be small. As a result, many entrepreneurs expand their market by venturing into other Southeast Asian countries early on. While some companies have found success by focusing on one country, such as Tokopedia, many prefer to venture out early.
Here I will offer the example of Docquity, where I am currently working. The founders have been quite successful in expanding very early in their journey.
You can think of Docquity as a professional network for doctors with a strong focus on education. Currently, the platform has over 350,000 doctor users in Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia, Vietnam, the Philippines, and Taiwan. Unlike many startups in developed markets who wait until they reach Series C or D to expand internationally, Docquity entered multiple markets across Southeast Asia early on.
The founders were successful thanks to two strategies. First, they cracked the playbook of quickly finding the right people on the ground who can kickstart a community of doctors in each market. Second, we aligned our growth with our clients. We often worked together to conquer new markets whenever they needed our help. This kept costs low and revenues high.
I now oversee engagement across all countries and have noticed the success of each call is driven by high localisation. It’s uncommon to find campaigns that work well regionally. In most cases, we work closely with local teams to run highly localised initiatives. This leads me to my final point — localisation.
Business localisation
Localisation is another crucial strategy for success across Southeast Asia, yet it is often overlooked. While I might have briefly covered the topic under the previous sections on “low pricing” and “regional expansion,” I believe it deserves separate consideration.
Even well-established startups in Southeast Asia struggle with localisation. A deep understanding of the local culture is essential, but easier said than done. In my experience, this includes adapting the brand to fit the new market through local campaigns incorporating local slang and cultural nuances.
“Almost everyone in the leadership team has at least lived here for some number of years… So you need to be multi-local, not regional,” Lim Kell Jay, Head of Grab Singapore.
In addition, it is important to modify products to comply with regulations and cater to unique use cases. Simply translating the website and product is not enough. A notable example of a company that has successfully localised in Asia is Spotify. The company used a variety of strategies and tactics, which I covered in an article sometime back.
Similarly, at Docquity, we have adopted a multi-site structure for our website. We use specific plugins and widgets for each market to ensure that our message and product resonate with the local audience. While the effort is more significant, it allows us to achieve a level of localisation that many other companies cannot.
Another example is Sea Group’s solution to the problem of unbanked individuals in the region. They introduced the “AirPlay” product in Indonesia to address the largely rural population, a reverse ATM that offers digital cash distribution in remote areas.
These counters also provide internet services in areas with limited infrastructure. This product is highly localized and specific to just some markets and thus offers a great example of the thinking one needs to succeed.
The five essential levers for conquering the market in Southeast Asia
By now, we have covered five different levers that might help you grow your business across the region: leverage a proven business model, align incentives, expand regionally early on, adopt low pricing, and localise.
It’s important to note that these levers are interdependent but work best in conjunction. As described above, the region is difficult enough. Founders need to reverse engineer what’s working and build products that cater to that. The following model shows how the levers should be approached and integrated for maximum success.
You could focus on one strategy in isolation, but the probability of success increases as you start layering different levers, one on top of another. This is hard because you do not know how all parts of your system should fit together.
What would be effective early on? When to introduce another lever? And the level of magnitude you need to consider. Yet, it does give you a mental framework that guides you toward what is essential and how much effort you want to allocate.
So these are the five levers I came up with. The idea of the Southeast Asia Mechanics Framework was three years in the making. I first wrote an article on “winning fast-growth markets” a few years back.
At the time, my view was that some business models and products experience tail other headwinds, but I could not pinpoint the levers at play. After advising nearly a hundred founders on their go-to-market for Southeast Asia, I started seeing patterns. With this framework, you can avoid the same mistakes I made when relocating to Southeast Asia.
Lastly, I want to address the elephant in the room. This article is informed by the time I spent working in and exploring Southeast Asia’s startup ecosystem over the past several years. I have not conducted any academic studies, and thus you need to take it with a grain of salt.
Every rule is bound to have edge cases. We can all think of examples of companies that are successful without following any of the methods described in this article. I guess that’s the challenge of running a business. There is no one recipe that works 100 per cent of the time.
Life is unpredictable, and even the most well-intentioned frameworks can backfire or prove ineffective. But that does not mean we should not study what works and what might be contributing to the success. Each founder decides how to run their business, and I hope this framework proves helpful.
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Editor’s note: e27 aims to foster thought leadership by publishing views from the community. Share your opinion by submitting an article, video, podcast, or infographic
A measly 5.6 per cent of fintech CEOs are women. Two-thirds of local businesses are locked out of the financing they need to digitise. Among the ASEAN countries, Malaysians are the most anxious about finances.
These are the statistics that the digital economy will never share with you.
Beneath the fast-paced whirlwind of the digitalisation movement, there is much to be done to close the gap between these underserved segments and financial technology — despite the fact that these are the groups that need financing the most.
As long as this gap remains unabridged, fintech will continue to limit its own growth and worse: fall short of transforming the financial industry in the many ways that it is uniquely positioned to do.
My work at Incite Foodtech Group (IFG), which revolves around diversification and equitable access, is built off the very belief that technology’s true potential lies in elevating underserved segments. By virtue of data and ecosystems, fintech is poised to open up new and unique opportunities that traditional financing may not conventionally provide.
But how do we ensure we are meeting the correct needs?
By critically analysing live transactional/retail data from key business verticals and using them as guiding benchmarks to create avenues of access to financial services.
Enabling the underserved to thrive
Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) account for 97 per cent of all businesses in Southeast Asia, which makes it all the more alarming that such a large proportion of them are unable to access financing as and when they need it most.
Due to their smaller operational scale and a common lack of credit history, SME owners are often deprioritised when it comes to obtaining loans. Not only does this make it difficult for them to start building positive credit history, but it also forces them to fall back on physical cash — which comes with its fair share of limitations, namely security risks and reducing the feasibility of paying off large amounts at one go.
Fintech players have a crucial role to play in accommodating SMEs’ pressing financing needs: identifying, fractionalising, and downsizing certain key financial services, such as small business loans or micro-investment products. That way, these once ‘big league’ avenues can be made more accessible to those who lack access to conventional banking services.
More than that, this is a game-changer for the way small businesses approach and are evaluated for short-term financing like loans. Rather than relying on big-picture statistics like credit scores, SMEs will now instead be able to make use of data like their daily transaction history or app usage — data that is capable of scaling to match the business size and is a far more accurate assessment of a small business’ financial standing.
As fintech continues to find innovative ways to facilitate growth for small enterprises and improve individual financial well-being across the board, the level of complexity surrounding this technology has also increased dramatically in recent years. It’s understandable that decision-makers may find it difficult to keep up with the torrent of new information every day; this makes it all the more important that we take great care not to leave businesses behind in our drive forward.
Education and transparency are key parts of this effort. In providing critical insights that guide SMEs to better understand the industry, their increased level of awareness and knowledge will translate into greater adoption of fintech as a modern tool — not to mention spearheading better accessibility. Ultimately, this largely removes the burden of knowledge off payment decision-makers and makes it less onerous for them to manage overall.
Creating a comprehensive, unified retail tech ecosystem can go a long way towards driving the potential of underserved segments through embedded financial technology.
At IFG, we have identified four divisions of key business verticals: the consumer sector (F&B, grocers and convenience stores, pharmacies, electronics); retail marketing solutions (user activation, redemption programmes, merchant partnerships); retail tech solutions (point-of-sale, data analytics, customer relationship management); and fintech services (digital lending, equity crowdfunding, venture capital).
As the ecosystem is well-integrated into essential services and key operational retail elements, it is self-sustaining, scalable, and resilient — ensuring that, even in times of crisis or instability, it continues to safely champion financial accessibility for the underserved.
Women stepping up in fintech
In positioning themselves as diverse and inclusive spaces, fintech and retail tech must also reflect the diversity it claims to represent. As a woman navigating this industry myself, I feel firsthand the importance of increasing the visibility and representation of female leaders in the world of tech.
With women at the helm of more departments, companies, and initiatives in tech, this opens up a world of opportunities for these women to then inspire and lead other women in turn. Beyond creating a positive cycle of empowerment in the industry, this will spark affirmative conversations and action about women stepping up to drive fintech forward.
Accelerator programmes that take into consideration the nuances of tech for women, such as She Loves Tech Malaysia, are also a gateway to normalising women as catalysts for greater change. As a community challenging the status quo in an industry as dynamic as technology, we bring with us a wealth of diverse perspectives that can translate into more creative, more sustainable growth.
Gender equality in tech is not just about having more women in the trade; it’s also about finding constructive ways for men to support women in the fintech space. That’s why it’s high time that businesses and financiers stop viewing the world through a gendered lens and rather embrace the inclusivity and innovation at the very heart of fintech itself.
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Editor’s note: e27 aims to foster thought leadership by publishing views from the community. Share your opinion by submitting an article, video, podcast, or infographic
We know it is not because we always have one or more lessons to gain from our failures, which will come in handy when building another venture. Plus, failures help you avoid mistakes in the future.
With high expectations, Warren Leow in 2017 launched Amazing Fables, which published personalised content to inspire young kids via rich storytelling, vibrant visuals, positive values, and exciting facts. He sold around 10,000 books, and orders poured from many countries. But three years later, he had to wind it up. High customer acquisition costs, low lifetime value and lower-than-expected gross profit margins led to Amazing Fables’s untimely death.
“It was breakeven on sales but needed a positive cashflow ROI on the first purchase to keep the engine chugging along for a bootstrapped company,” he said.
Along the Amazing Fables journey, he learnt many lessons.
In our first article from the failure series, he talks about the venture, the experience, and the lessons learnt.
Besides this, today’s ER edition also carries news items about eFishery’s unicorn club entry, B Capital’s closing of a new healthcare fund, Una Brands’s US$30M fundraising, Betterhalf’s Series A round, among other features, authored articles, and Top100 updates.
B Capital closes inaugural US$500M healthcare fund
B Capital Healthcare Fund I targets firms from digital health to biotech that are building breakthrough products and solutions; The current B Capital global healthcare portfolio includes over 20 companies in the US, Asia and Europe.
SoftBank gets US$115M from sale of 3.8% stake in India’s Delhivery
The Japanese VC firm continues to be the largest shareholder in the logistics company, holding around a 13.5% stake; SoftBank has invested in a slew of unicorns such as Flipkart, Oyo, Lenskart, Unacademy, and Swiggy.
SG’s Blockchain Founders Fund closes US$75M fund
Fund II received support from key industry investors such as Polygon, Ripple, Octava, and AppWorks; BFF invests in pre-seed and seed-stage startups that use Web3 and blockchain tech to create new solutions.
E-commerce aggregator Una Brands rakes in US$30M
The lead investor is Northstar Group; Una Brands’s flagship brands, ErgoTune and EverDesk, are now in multiple countries across the APAC region and beyond.
AI-powered match-making platform Betterhalf nets US$8.5M Series A
The investors include Finsight Ventures, co-founders of Instagram and Dropbox, and Rebel Fund; Betterhalf claims it has recorded a 17% m-o-m growth, recording US$2.5M annualised revenue and has 1M+ monthly active users.
SEA fintech firm Fazz raises US$5.3M new funding from MUFG
The overall round could be larger; In September, Fazz raised US$100M in Series C comprising US$75M in equity from various investors and US$25M in debt facility from Lenable.
ILex gets US$4.5M to tackle inefficiencies in corporate lending
Hong Kong-based VC firm QBN Capital led the round; ILex’s loan distribution platform aims to offer banks, asset managers, and debt advisors operational efficiencies in primary syndication and secondary trading processes.
Philippine store management firm Enstack nets US$3M in Series A round
The investors include Mangrove Capital, Xendit, and Shinsegae International CEO William Kim; Enstack provides SMEs with an end-to-end app to manage multiple storefronts, inventory, payment and shipping solutions.
Warren Leow talks about Amazing Fables shutdown
Amazing Fables published personalised content to inspire young kids via rich storytelling, vibrant visuals, positive values, and exciting facts; It sold 10K units before the business shut down in 2021.
Echelon Asia Summit 2023 brings together APAC’s leading startups, corporates, policymakers, industry leaders, and investors to Singapore this June 14-15. Learn more and get tickets here. Echelon also features the TOP100 stage, where startups can pitch to 5000+ delegates, among other benefits like a chance to connect with investors, visibility through e27 platform, and other prizes. Join TOP100 here.
Registration for TOP100 is now open and we are looking forward to seeing your startup on the list!
TOP100 Program gives you the one golden chance to connect with hundreds of investors, showcase your startup at Echelon, pitch on the TOP100 stage, and access special programs. Find out what’s new in TOP100 and join here: https://bit.ly/TOP100_2023
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Just as countries in SEA embarked on a return to pre-pandemic normality, global headwinds started to blow, threatening to derail a full economic recovery. Despite this, however, recent reports such as the ‘e-Conomy SEA report 2022’ by Google, Temasek, and Bain & Company revealed that Southeast Asia’s digital economy remains on course to reach ~$200B in gross merchandise value (GMV) and that digital adoption continues to rise today.
For tech startups in the region, this means that there are plenty of opportunities to seize in the market. But it also means that startups have to work harder in order to stand out from the rest, especially because everybody will have the same goal in mind.
This explains why startups must have a regional outlook from Day 1 and a proper support system to help them materialise it.
The TOP100 is here to help startups get there. As part of the annual Echelon Asia Summit, TOP100 is a curated programme designed to discover, showcase, and accelerate the next generation of up-and-coming startups.
Here are the ways on how taking part in the 2023 TOP100 will be beneficial for your startup:
The opportunity to raise the next funding round after Echelon Asia Summit
In addition to getting to showcase at Echelon, your startup will also get direct access to investors who are actively looking for startups. Through Echelon Connect investor-startup matching, startups will get the chance to directly and privately meet and pitch to potential investors.
Find your business match from among the region’s top corporates
Top enterprises in the Asia Pacific are looking at startups to help accelerate their corporate innovation –and TOP100 startups get first in line in Forge. Explicitly designed to match and introduce startups to these corporates, Forge is the beginning of a fruitful collaboration.
Get into the radar of Asia Pacific’s stakeholders — pitch at the TOP100 Stage
On stage at Echelon, you will get to showcase your innovative ideas to the Asia Pacific ecosystem’s stakeholders. Do your best, stand out, and you might find yourself becoming the TOP100 Champion and winning amazing prizes.
Interested startups can sign up for the 2023 TOP100 APAC here for a chance to go up against the region’s best and brightest tech startups today. For more information on the matter, you may visit the 2020 TOP100 APAC today.
As the dreary funding winter continues to soar, at e27, we are kickstarting a new article series Line of Hire to understand an organisation’s culture and hiring philosophies to empower tech workers with the right growth tools and enable business owners to attract talent.
Stephanie Ping is Co-Founder and CEO of WORQ, a hyper-localised community workspace bringing new opportunities to businesses and entrepreneurs by fostering meaningful connections for its members and the surrounding community.
Ping graduated from Stanford University with a BA in Economics and MS in Management Science and Engineering. Her experience with Stanford’s entrepreneurship community significantly shaped her vision for WORQ’s entrepreneurial community.
Ping is the recipient of the Malaysian Venture Capital Association’s Outstanding Female Entrepreneur of 2019.
Ping discusses her company’s culture and hiring philosophies in this candid interview.
What personality traits/qualities do you look for in potential employees?
We look for passion and grit. We love teammates who are community-minded and are driven to foster connections.
How do they fit into your company culture? Tell us a little more about your company culture.
WORQ is a collaborative community, and we operate on a flat structure that drives high mobility in a fast-growing organisation to embrace the community mindset. At the same time, we strive to have quick feedback turnaround and execution across departments and reporting lines.
At WORQ, our community, which comprises MNCs, freelancers, startups and SMEs from different backgrounds and ethnicities, is at the heart of what we do. Our mission is to create a world where people prosper by working together.
The design of our co-working space has been carefully thought out to foster collaboration and creativity while providing flexibility in working arrangements, from the layout of the hot desking areas to the private rooms, common areas, pantry and even meeting rooms.
How do you foster transparency and encourage achievement in the workplace?
It is crucial to have a robust work environment with the effectiveness to scale, accountability to progress and adaptability to change to foster a team.
Whether it’s people, process or technology related, identifying and bestowing the necessary resources, policies and tools for our teams is essential to encouraging achievement. Other than planning and setting goals to provide that clarity that our teams need, we encourage everyone to share learnings, celebrate successes and even reflect on failures, which is a crucial process for growth as an absolute unit.
To achieve that, we must allow everyone to share their voices through an open platform (through employee engagements or an open communication channel that provides access to information and ease of communication and feedback).
More importantly, we also found that involving our employees in decision-making creates that creative space and instils the confidence they need to grow.
Do you have a mental health policy?
We provide safe and open channels for our employees to reach out to us whenever they encounter any challenges. Our co-working spaces are designed with quiet areas and even sleeping pods for the community to recharge and get much-needed peace of mind throughout the day.
WFH or WFO, or hybrid?
Hybrid, hybrid, hybrid.
At WORQ, we believe in the hybrid work model that provides flexible working arrangements and work-life balance. All our outlets are strategically located near public transportation, with high connectivity to major highways and easily accessible to multiple service providers and various food choices.
We understand the need for working parents to be closer to home. We support working mothers by providing mother-friendly facilities (mother’s room) for nursing mothers, a shower room and napping pods.
How should a tech worker prepare for the funding winter?
Profitable scalability. Profitability isn’t the opposite of growth. In fact, it is synonymous with scaling.
Every new site we open makes us more money to grow, and that’s how tech companies should think. Things catch up, and if one isn’t disciplined to withstand the pressure not to be unsustainable, then it is tough to be successful.
Every winter, there is an opportunity. As WORQ was working on sustainability through COVID-19, it emerged as a stronger player. Winters are when the wheat separates from the shaft. Tech companies should prepare well in advance and anticipate winter to use these opportunities to surge ahead, which was WORQ’s strategy.
How do you measure the performance of your employees?
We must ensure that our company goals always reflect our vision to be the best co-working space, which is then translated into key results and action plans across divisions to be measured routinely. We run our appraisal exercise quarterly to provide an active platform where both appraisers and appraisees can tackle challenges, celebrate achievements and grow effectively as a team.
At WORQ, our core values are deeply rooted and embedded in our working culture to promote accountability, customer and entrepreneurial mindset. On a day-to-day basis, we encourage collaborative behaviour among team members where they can send their colleagues Qarma Points for any support received, which will be showcased and translated into rewards.
Will you consider a moderately skilled person with great honesty or a highly skilled person with less honesty when hiring?
Yes. Skill is secondary, and we will 100 per cent hire someone who doesn’t have the right skills yet, as long as they have the right attitude.
We do not require a college degree. We can work with anyone as long as they can demonstrate a willingness to learn, curiosity, honesty and integrity! Skills can be acquired, and we are here to help our amazing team acquire them.
Do you encourage ‘intrapreneurship’ in your organisation?
Yes absolutely. We work in a community work style and practice design thinking in how we operate. We encourage our employees to think out of the box to resolve challenges and lead change to improve the current workflow. We have an ‘innovation box’ where employees can submit their ideas anonymously too. At WORQ, every idea is worth exploring.
How do you support upskilling for your employees?
We have crafted a Career Progression Plan (CPP) for all roles to allow all team members to align fairly and have ownership over their career goals, competencies, and timeline. CPP showcases the vertical career ladder each employee can progress into and allows our team to explore various portfolios based on their interests and capabilities.
At WORQ, we are also committed to building practical training and development programs to continuously enhance our team members’ knowledge, skills, leadership and standards. From technical topics like system functional training to soft skill topics like customer relationship management and leadership training, we aim to gradually build up over 15 syllabi of topics under our Centre of Excellence programme.
We provide monthly learning recommendations to our team to promote self-learning from our readily available and easy-to-access platforms, such as Masterclass, SoftBank Operator School and TedTalk.
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The UN WOMEN announced the theme for International Women’s Day 2023 in December last year. For us in the tech startup ecosystem, it was something that is near and dear to our heart: Innovation and technology for gender equality.
“The United Nations Observance of IWD recognises and celebrates the women and girls who are championing the advancement of transformative technology and digital education. IWD 2023 will explore the impact of the digital gender gap on widening economic and social inequalities. The event will also spotlight the importance of protecting the rights of women and girls in digital spaces and addressing online and ICT-facilitated gender-based violence,” the organisation announced in a statement.
This theme calls for the inclusion of women and other marginalised groups into the digital world. It highlights that their lack of inclusion has shaved US$1 trillion from the gross domestic product of low- and middle-income countries in the last decade, according to the UN Women’s Gender Snapshot 2022 report. This loss is expected to grow to US$1.5 trillion by 2025 without action.
The problem–and the possibility for us to take part in providing the solutions–sounds like an exciting challenge to tackle. But before we go out to try to solve the problem, perhaps we should aim to sit down and reflect: Are we alright?
Because we can never solve a problem when we are still part of that problem itself.
The state of gender equality in the tech startup ecosystem has always been a hot topic. For years, we have touched upon different angles from the lack of women in leadership position, access to funding for women-led companies, to sexual harassment in the workplace.
Today, in 2023, we certainly would like to ask ourselves: How far have we come? What challenges have we managed to tackle? What challenges remain?
There are many ways to answer these questions, depending on which problem you would like to focus on. But I would like to highlight the state of startup funding given to women founders–as funding is the very thing that allows impactful companies to grow and thrive.
“Women are not only raising less funding, but they are also raising it at lower valuations. This has ripple effects throughout the gender ecosystem, from decreased equity to more modest exits than male founders,” Nikkei Asia Reviewwrote in December 2022.
“And as women amass less personal wealth, fewer become limited partners, venture capitalists, angel investors or serial entrepreneurs – the people providing the investment money for funds, those making the decisions on how that money will be invested, and those allowed to use the funds.”
The report further highlighted that in Southeast Asia, startups founded solely by women accounted for only 0.6 per cent of capital invested in the region in 2021.
One might say that “Hey, back in 2021, nobody raised any funding. Everyone suffered.” Sure.
That is why mainstreaming the discussion on gender equality is even more urgent.
Last year, I attended a debate at the She Loves Tech conference in Singapore which pointed out the harm in treating women as an impact investment. This meant that when a crisis happens, investment in women and other minorities will usually be the first to go. So, investors need to put investing in women as part of their core agenda–not a charity or a CSR.
This is by no means stating that the tech startup ecosystem should not be involved in the general movement for gender equality in society. After all, the tech industry does not stand in a silo. We are the society itself. Whatever is going on within the tech startup ecosystem is a reflection of the society it lives in.
But perhaps the way for us to make a change is by looking at how operate as an ecosystem and see how we can continue to improve. To allow talents to thrive regardless of gender, race, sexuality, and economic background. To give room for every entrepreneur to build and grow their companies.
Once we were able to get there, then perhaps that is where true disruption can happen.
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Echelon Asia Summit 2023 is bringing together APAC’s leading startups, corporates, policymakers, industry leaders, and investors to Singapore this June 14-15. Learn more and get tickets here. Echelon also features the TOP100 stage, where startups get the chance to pitch to 5000+ delegates, among other benefits like a chance to connect with investors, visibility through e27 platform, and other prizes. Join TOP100 here.
The start of 2023 has been interesting and dynamic, with most conversations revolving around volatile markets. Now, companies are turning to the next pressing topic of the year: how to protect their revenues. The challenging part about recessions is that they are out of our control, and the best way to navigate them is to manage our own businesses effectively.
This article will dive into how startups and SMEs can assess their current situation, reduce expenses and expand their reach to stabilise or increase revenue while traditional funding methods are slowly drying up.
Reducing expenses and streamlining the business
Reducing expenses is a key strategy to consider when navigating a recession. Companies should cut back on unnecessary expenses, streamline business development spending, and, in the worst case, trim headcount. Reflecting on the successes, failures, and strategies implemented from the previous year is key to identifying what worked, what didn’t, and what needs improvement.
Companies can use these findings to streamline their operations using technology solutions and identify areas that can be expanded to increase revenue. With the rise of ChatGPT and other AI solutions, companies can experiment with these tools to speed up and automate manual processes within their team. This enables them to focus on tasks that drive impact and revenue.
After refining spending and streamlining business processes, companies should consider their next steps. One key strategy we see businesses using to navigate a recession is exploring new markets. Although not immediately obvious to many startups and SMEs, expanding a business’s reach can improve its chances of surviving a recession. It allows companies to tap into new revenue streams and access more potential clients.
Startups and SMEs interested in exploring new markets should first evaluate whether they are truly ready for such a step, and identify any potential red flags they need to address beforehand. If they identify an opportunity, the next step would be to refine which markets to target and how to adapt their messaging to accommodate different communities and countries.
Companies with an English foundation can usually find their initial stepping stones in other English-speaking markets (Explore the Rainmaking Expand: United Kingdom programme). However, those looking to expand closer to home can explore how to translate and adapt their product to a new language and culture.
Identifying potential in new markets
When a company is ready to expand, it is important to dive into the potential capability and opportunities available in the new market. By utilising expansion frameworks such as the PESTLE Framework and Capability Mapping Framework, companies can identify how viable the new market is for them, as well as identify where they need to invest to make a new market a success further.
By leveraging these frameworks, founders can identify gaps in their own capabilities, focus on the improvements or refines that need to be made and make informed decisions on how they are to invest in the new market and set themselves up for success.
At Rainmaking Expand, we have also recognised an increasing trend for startups and SMEs to improve and protect their revenues by collaborating with other companies in new markets. This has helped them to accelerate their market entry and reduce the risk.
As a venture development firm, we are able to provide hands-on support from the idea stage to scale, helping companies manage their growth in a smart way and making limited resources go as far as possible.
By understanding the needs of different communities and countries and leveraging our network to secure and leverage potential commercial partnerships, we are able to help startups identify and capitalise on emerging trends in order to achieve success in the new economy.
In order to stay ahead of the competition and remain relevant, startups should be willing to take risks, embrace change, and think outside the box. By utilising the right combination of people, resources, and technology, startups can gain a competitive advantage and increase their chances of success in the new economy. With the right strategies in place, startups can continue to grow, despite the current economic challenges and position themselves for long-term success.
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(L-R) Betterhalf Co-Founders Rahul Namdev and Pawan Gupta
Betterhalf, a Bengaluru-based AI-powered matchmaking platform targetting urban Indians, has secured US$8.5 million in a Series A funding round.
FinSight Ventures (which has previously invested in dating app Bumble), besides marquee investors, such as Instagram Co-Founder Mike Krieger and Dropbox Co-Founder Arash Ferdowsi, participated.
Rebel Fund, Nurture Ventures, Leonis Investissement, Derek Callow (ex-CMO of Bumble), Scott Belsky (Founder of Behance), Brendan O’Driscoll (ex-Product Head of Spotify), Manik Gupta (ex-CPO of Uber), Punit Soni (ex-CPO of Flipkart), and Ravish Naresh (Co-Founder & CEO of Khatabook) also joined the investor list.
Launched in 2019, Betterhalf describes itself as a new-age matrimony platform aiming to provide full-stack tech-enabled wedding planning services in India.
The startup recently launched the astrology service AstroZodiac.
Betterhalf claims it recorded a 17 per cent m-o-m growth, recording US$2.5 million annualised revenue. The growth is further fuelled by a ~3x surge in users in nine months.
The company further said it has achieved over one million monthly active users. In addition, Betterhalf also announced its 2nd ESOP buyback. Its first ESOP buyback was done 15 months ago, in December 2021.
Pawan Gupta, Co-Founder and CEO of Betterhalf, said: “Our razor focus on becoming the super app of matrimony and full stack tech-enabled wedding services will drive our next set of growth.”
“Betterhalf represents a breakthrough technology in matrimony space. The platform knows how to leverage technology to break the large problem and build robust solutions for scale, especially full-stack tech-enabled wedding services makes us immensely confident,” said Alexey Garyunov, General Partner, FinSight Ventures.
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Echelon Asia Summit 2023 brings together APAC’s leading startups, corporates, policymakers, industry leaders, and investors to Singapore this June 14-15. Learn more and get tickets here. Echelon also features the TOP100 stage, where startups can pitch to 5000+ delegates, among other benefits like a chance to connect with investors, visibility through e27 platform, and other prizes. Join TOP100 here.
