Web3 community Metacamp has opened an NFT-gated Web3 co-working space in Singapore with the help of blockchain firm Solana.

This education, community and co-working space focuses on blockchain technologies and Web3. The space will focus on blockchain innovations, talents and companies.

“The occupants learn, connect and build through exclusive events. They learn in-depth about blockchain skills, projects and industry trends. They connect informally with startups, investors, talents, partners, and users. They experience a conducive and dynamic work environment to validate and grow their business,” said Metacamp Co-Founder Jonas Chen.

It has three floors and can accommodate more than 100 people (or 20 startups with up to five team members). The co-working space is divided into fixed desks and hot desks.

Amenities such as high-speed wifi, monitors, and sit-stand desks are provided.

Also Read: To leverage Web3 technologies, Web2 companies may start by building the right culture

Besides, individuals will benefit from meeting like-minded people and connecting with other startups, investors and talents in the ecosystem.

The NFT-gated system provides a secure method of entry into the co-working space. “The NFT-gated system allows approved members to enter the premises by holding an NFT in their crypto wallet,” added Chen.

The Metacamp co-working space charges a fee for membership, education services, and event hosting.

According to Chen, post-COVID-19, some people have become comfortable working remotely while some seek in-person interactions. He believes innovations can only spark through informal interactions.

Metacamp was founded in early 2022 by a group of Web3 professionals with a vision to grow professionals within the space by offering Solana-focused community events, education programmes, and corporate workshops. Since then, it has grown to a community of 600+ members.

 

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Many businesses are unsure how to systematise their operations to scale their company without the headache. How does one prepare their business for the unexpected and create a lean, profitable machine? And what is holding back small, digital agencies from growth? 

By 2024, small businesses could add up to 2.3 trillion dollars to the global GDP growth. However, recent historical events have drastically impacted small businesses.

The fall of small businesses

The COVID-19 pandemic, for instance, hit small businesses hard. Up to 96 per cent of all small businesses were affected by the pandemic, as 59 per cent of these companies had to lay off a substantial number of their employees.

In fact, nearly 30 per cent of small businesses closed their doors permanently due to the global pandemic. Globally, 20 per cent of women-led small businesses reported closing compared to 16 per cent of small businesses led by men. BIPOC-led small businesses were at least 50 per cent more likely to report permanent closures, reduced sales, and employee layoffs.  

The rise in numbers

However, in 2021, the global small business closure rate fell from 24 per cent to 18 per cent. Just about 34 per cent of small businesses reported lower sales than a year ago, indicating the upward trajectory of small business sales.

In the United States, closure rates fell to only 16 per cent. The future for small businesses thus looks brighter than the recent difficult years. For instance, Americans created 2.8 billion more online micro-businesses in 2020 than in 2019. Moreover, 67 per cent of these micro-businesses plan to expand into full-time operations. 

Likewise, 50 per cent of small businesses are focused on digital agency growth and rebuilding in this more promising time for the global economy. However, 36 per cent of small businesses report still being in survival mode due to the pandemic.

20 per cent of small businesses have drastically altered their business models since the pandemic, and 62 per cent of businesses that shifted entirely to digital business models plan to maintain and expand options moving forward.

Also Read: COVID-19 and the wave of business digitalisation

45 per cent of small businesses are ready to start planning for a digital future, while 28 per cent of small businesses are already working on this integration into the digital sphere. 

Consistency in growth

Businesses should prepare for the unexpected in these optimistic yet ever-changing times. Many small business owners take full responsibility for nearly every aspect of their business, including 75 per cent of sales, 75 per cent of client management, 72 per cent of hiring and onboarding training, 72 per cent of overall team performance, and 50 per cent of the ultimate delivery and results.

Consequently, more than half of small business owners are reported to be too terrified to leave their businesses for time off or a vacation. In fact, three out of four small business owners are not prepared for their second-in-command to take a temporary leave. 

And most small businesses are not prepared for unexpected challenges or unexpected successes. More than 96 per cent of small businesses are unprepared to handle a sudden influx of leads. Similarly, more than 80 per cent of small businesses are not prepared to handle one huge new client, and 79 per cent are not prepared to get as little as ten new clients in a single week.

Therefore, now is the time to build a resilient and scalable business to handle the fluctuation of the consumer market and optimise revenue. Small businesses can create a complete and optimised business system to easily delegate needs. This system allows businesses to track the performance of each pillar to identify strengths and gaps within the workplace. 

These pillars include workflow, tech stack, documents, training, and metrics. As a result, businesses can easily see the repeatable steps to track progress, streamline processes to run more efficiently, support assets so they do not have to start from scratch every time, enable people to perform each process and reach levels of excellence, and measure the efficacy of each of the processes. 

Businesses wondering where they stand compared to their competition can check the varying opportunity matrixes. These show how 400-plus agencies ranging from US$250 thousand to US$7 million in annual revenue performed across the five pillars and seven functions of their business.

The seven functions include sales process, client onboarding, production, client management, reporting, hiring process, and team onboarding. Identify gaps in your business to yield greater success.

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Bangkok-headquartered one-click checkout firm Beam has announced the completion of its US$2.5 million seed funding led by Sequoia Surge with participation from Partech Partners.

The payment firm plans to use the fresh funding to hire employees, acquire more merchants, and expand to other countries in Southeast Asia.

Also Read: Humble Sustainability raises funding to bring excess inventory back into circularity

Founded in 2019 by Nattapat Chaimanowong, Mike Chinakrit Piamchon, and Win Vareekasem, Beam makes online transactions easier on e-commerce and social platforms. The firm claims its solution takes just 20 seconds, 4x faster than an average online checkout, enabling brands to go direct-to-consumer.

“We want to help brands go direct-to-consumer and cultivate shopper loyalty by improving the online transaction experience and optimising platform fees. Shoppers should be able to shop wherever they want and check out with just one click,” said CEO Vareekasem.

Beam is part of Surge’s seventh cohort of 15 Southeast Asian and Indian startups.

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Enterprise leaders felt the urgency of digital transformation in 2019, but as the world continues to determine paths forward following the pandemic, that urgency has gone into overdrive.

Business success depends on the ability to do more with less, stretch existing resources further, and respond to changing conditions. These imperatives intersect when it comes to democratising business application development. Enterprise recovery efforts will benefit from no-code application development in particular. 

When the capability of creating business applications is extended beyond IT to the people most closely associated with the challenges, for example, business analysts, administrators, and marketing specialists, the speed at which a company can move and the number of people working on solutions can both increase dramatically.

If every emerging challenge needs to be handled by technical staff or every new application requires dedicated engineering resources, operating with the velocity and responsiveness that this moment requires is impossible, even for organisations with robust IT resources.

Why is no-code so important?

Less than one per cent of the world’s working population are software developers, and no-code aims to disperse software power to the other 99 per cent.

Scott Galloway, an NYU professor, entrepreneur, and marketing guru has described a trend he calls “The Great Dispersion,” in which consumers increasingly receive greater value from industries or offerings.

Also Read:  The secret sauce of getting started with ‘no-code’

In a sense, no-code is the dispersion of software development. No-code tools now allow end users (entrepreneurs, innovators, employees, product managers, etc.) to create and manage software faster, cheaper, and easier than they could before.

Despite this, no-code awareness remains low. According to a study conducted at MIT Sloan School of Management, an outlet for future entrepreneurs and product managers, 76 per cent of respondents are unfamiliar with “no-code.”

By quantifying key trends in the industry, mapping examples of powerful tools and their applications, and identifying groups that can benefit from no-code technologies, this article aims to raise awareness and adoption of these revolutionary technologies.

No-code growth and industry trends

From media and entertainment to health and fitness, commerce, and more, the pandemic rocked most industries and woke them up to the need to go digital first. As a result, launching a new company can be less expensive, with a much broader reach and a much more competitive field. 

With no code, people can solve problems regardless of their backgrounds, democratising software development. As a result of the pandemic, people are also taking a closer look at how technology is transforming their workplace.

As a fast-growing industry, no-code development is expected to reach US$21 billion by 2022. Adalo’s survey of no-code experts predicted that by the end of 2022, it would be as common as making a Powerpoint. Most schools and universities will offer no-code courses by 2025, according to these experts.

As VC money continues to pour into no-code startups, the investment world has noticed the huge value of no-code. During the last few years, 110 no-code startups and companies have raised $5 billion in venture capital.

No-code use cases and resources

The goal of no-code tools is to make their platform as easy to use as possible so that as many users as possible can get value out of their data. They are also SaaS-based, which means anyone with a web browser can access them, and they have automated connectors for integrating data across organisations.

In this approach, the no-code tools play a key role. Using these tools, any user can create charts and indicators quickly and intuitively. As a result, they will be organised into a web page without having to write any code and can then be easily shared with colleagues, customers, citizens, and other stakeholders.

In other words, users can learn how to use complex business intelligence platforms or how to programme in HTML or CSS to create web pages.

Also Read: How no-code platforms are providing a boost to the real estate industry

Four key features enable anyone to create interactive, compelling visualisations without any training quickly:

Accurate calculations built-in

To compare two results or establish an average, users can learn simple formulas or perform calculations themselves. They select from a list of suggested indicators the type of operation they need to perform in their graphs.

Simplicity through a single screen

Visualisations can be created without leaving no-code tools. All data-sharing options with other users within and outside the organisation are available directly from the tool.

An intuitive navigation experience makes navigation easy

Creating a data story or report is a simple process. From selecting the source dataset to selecting a visualisation, configuring the graphs/KPIs, and customising their appearance, the tool guides the user step by step.

An interface that drags and drops

By dragging and dropping graphics, indicators, and text areas within a page, users can organise the different sections of a page.

Preview in real-time

It enables users to preview how the page will look when integrated into a data portal or data service in real-time, saving time and effort. In addition to the no-code tools, the platform provides powerful APIs for expert users, allowing everyone to turn data into value using the tools they need.

No-code “personas”: Who can use them?

Everyone can use no-code, which makes it so powerful. There are five main types of no-code users.

• Business Users under strategic roles
  Chief Strategic Officer
  Chief Executive Officer
  Chief Information Officer
  Chief Transformation Officer
• Business Users Under Tactical Roles
  Line managers
  Demand Managers
  Portfolio Managers
  Enterprise and IT Architects
• Business Users under Operational Roles
  Business Analyst
  Subject Matter Experts
  Business Consultants
  Marketing Managers etc.

Key Takeaways

• By 2022, the no-code industry is expected to grow to 21 billion dollars.
• In the last few years, 110 no-code startups and companies have received over US$5 billion in venture capital investment (Google, SAP, Celonis, etc.)
• Many use cases are possible, including website and app building, workflow automation, internal enterprise tools, analytics, forms, memberships, and chatbots. Increasingly, these are becoming “no-code by default,” similar to e-commerce today.
• To fully harness the power of no-code, no-code communities, resource websites, and education websites are essential.
• Everyone can use no-code: Entrepreneurs, Product Managers, Large Companies, Developers, and Freelancers.

With no-code, anyone with the ability to drag and drop can create and build software without using code, “distributing” what less than one per cent of the working population could do previously.

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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

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A new social media platform was unveiled early this month at the Singapore FinTech Festival (SFF) 2022.

Kampd, founded by Amit Gupta and Ullrich Loeffler, two serial entrepreneurs and co-founders of digital research and advisory firm Ecosystm, aims to provide a platform for like-minded professionals to engage with each other within communities of interest anchored around purposeful content.

According to its CEO Gupta, the social platform unleashes the immense potential of the creator economy to benefit professionals across domains through the promise of rich, meaningful content.

On the sidelines of the launch, e27 sat with Gupta, who talked about the platform, its USP, goals, and how it differentiates itself from LinkedIn.

Edited excerpts:

What is Kampd, and why was it created? What problem does it solve?

For years, creators and enterprises have struggled with a fragmented business content ecosystem. With platforms built around networking, good content is drowned by a huge influx of irrelevant content. As a result, users struggle to find quality business content and engage in a consistent community experience with creators and enterprises.

Kampd is here to solve that. It is for those seeking to connect with like-minded professionals and enhance their knowledge by consuming content that caters to their interests and passion. The platform empowers creators, who are thought leaders and industry stalwarts, to create and amplify their content on Kampd and across platforms to eventually build sustained engagement with their followers within the relevant communities.

Also Read: Ex-Amazon execs attract US$1M for their work-and-play social network for engineers startup oi

While professional communities exist today, their full potential has yet to be harnessed as it lacks sustained engagement through a platform that caters to such communities.

The fragmented nature of content today means one has to go to many different content platforms that are often dictated by the content formats rather than interest areas. There is no one place that’s the home of professional content.

Who are the users of Kampd?

The platform was built to serve the needs of creators, enterprises and users.

Creators ‘kamp’ all their content, across multiple formats, in just one place and amplify and monetise their professional brand meaningfully with the right set of creator and engagement tools. Kamp is the niche, topic-oriented communities on the platform.

Enterprises will ‘kamp’ all their content, across multiple formats, in just one place and, through curated communities, drive sustained engagement with employees, customers, partners and prospects.

Users will consume all their thought leadership content, across multiple formats, creators, and platforms, in just one place and, through our personalisation engine, engage with other like-minded users and enhance their brand by building up their influence and thought leadership.

How is Kampd different from LinkedIn or other social networks? What benefits does it bring to its users?

Unlike the traditional social media platforms that emphasise ‘who you know’, Kampd enables users to maximise their potential with ‘what you know’.

We build on the untapped potential of professional communities where like-minded people can have sustained engagement with other professionals and experts on interest areas they are truly passionate about.

We believe that communities have to be curated. With this, the content and engagement become most relevant to the professionals in such communities. Members can access or be part of ‘kamps’. It provides a ready platform for thought leaders to engage with their audiences sustainably.

What opportunities do you see for Kampd in Southeast Asia?

The SEA region will witness one of the fastest growth in the knowledge economy, boasting some of the youngest populations in the world that are increasingly getting into the professional workforce.

We are witnessing a thriving culture of innovation, entrepreneurship, and diversity. The young generation represents the next wave of professionals and business leaders increasingly led by purpose. We have visualised Kampd as the platform that empowers this generation of professionals and drives their knowledge journeys towards a collective purpose-led approach.

How does the platform plan to make money?

Our current focus is to provide the professional community with a platform to connect with like-minded people and discover content that will help them grow. So far, we have seen a great response from communities and professionals seeking to join the platform.

Also Read: How one LinkedIn message changed the fate of my failing startup

In the long term, Kampd plans to empower communities and creators to monetise, as we believe there is immense potential in the professional landscape.

Many social networking sites were launched in the past but were unsuccessful because of competition, poor patronage, or poor execution. How will Kampd address such challenges?

At its core, the solution is to listen to the market and continuously test, optimise and repeat. At Kampd, we have spent the last two years of our build phase taking feedback, usability testing and market sensing to understand better the needs of professionals, communities and creators alike.

We are committed to staying true to our North Star, which is to enable professionals to engage with each other through specific communities that are anchored through purposeful content in a way that is simple and intuitive to use.

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Even in 2022, the issue of the funding gap between male and female founders remains prevalent in the global tech startup ecosystem. There are many solutions proposed to help solve this problem, but putting women at the centre by making them a target for impact investment was a popular one. Investors aim to create a positive impact in society by investing in female founders as part of their impact investment strategy.

But is this really the best solution to the problem? What kind of impact does it bring to female founders, the industry, and society in general? Is it possible that focusing on women for impact investment brings more harm than good?

On November 11, at the She Loves Tech Global Conference 2022 in Singapore, the organisation hosted a debate on women as the focus of impact investment and whether it is the way to go. Chaired by Arvin Abraham, Partner at McDermott, Will & Emery, the debate featured leading names in the global startup ecosystem: Kamila Katya Sharipova (Sturgeon Capital), Michael Lints (Golden Gate Ventures), Mohan Lakhamraju (Great Learning), and Shiyan Koh (Hustle Fund).

Opening the debate was Lakhamraju with his argument of how, in the context of a mature market, putting women in the centre of impact investment is counterproductive to the goal of promoting gender equality in the startup ecosystem. Speaking in favour of meritocracy, he dubbed the motion as “an insult to the capabilities of female founders.”

Also Read: Women in Tech: Female leaders shaking up insurtech in Asia

Responding to his argument, Sharipova brought up data about how capital that goes to women has not moved in the recent years and that businesses do not “operate in a vacuum” –this means that business owners need to be aware of how their operations are impacting the society. This called for a form of affirmative action represented by women as the centre of impact investment.

“If you’re positively biased towards investing into diverse teams, or teams that understands diversity … that’s teaching women that investing in talented women is the smartest decision [one can make],” explains Koh as part of the opposition team.

Throughout the debate, concerns regarding the long-term impact of a women-centred impact investment kept on coming up. In his speech, Lints pointed out that impact investment on women is nothing more but a “minimal contribution” and a step to “check the boxes” when it comes to levelling the playing field and promoting diversity.

“We also have to remember that impact investment is often the first one to go during a time of crises,” he stressed.

Editor’s take

As a spectator of the debate, if I were to name a winner, then I would give it to Sharipova and Koh’s team. However, the score margin between the two competing teams is relatively thin.

In deciding the winner, I go by the team that can elaborate on their points and defend their key arguments.

While Lakhamraju opened the debate with a bold point about the values of meritocracy, this point was easily tackled by Sharipova in the opening of her speech when she pointed out that meritocracy was not achievable in every market. In communities where there is an apparent disparity between what men and women can do, there are steps that should be taken by policy-makers (and those who are in power) to ensure that everyone can get to the starting point at the same time.

Also Read: Gina Romero’s quest of unchaining women through AI and digital tasks

The affirmative team returned to the top spot with Lints’s argument about long-term impact and sustainability. While these could have been the points that saved the team’s spot, I noticed that Sharipova’s earlier point on the necessity of affirmative action stood –Lakhamraju and Lints’s ideas were not able to be realised without acknowledging the different situations on the ground.

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At e27, we have kickstarted a new articles series called work-life balance to learn more about tech enablers and executives and their lives beyond working hours.

Amit Ghosh is the Chief Information & Services Officer for R3. He leads the global operations organisation responsible for information security, IT infrastructure and operations, customer success, professional services, and technical support. In addition, he also leads its business and growth in Asia Pacific. 

Before R3, he held various senior business development & operations roles at Visa, PayPal, and Hewlett-Packard.

Based in Singapore, he holds an MBA from Chicago Booth and a BTech from IIT-BHU.

He is a regular contributor of articles for e27 (you can read his thought leadership articles here). 

In this candid interview, Ghosh talks about his personal and professional life.

How would you explain what you do to a five-year-old?

As a father of an almost five-year-old, this is an interesting question. My answer would be the following: we build things like you build toys with your legos.

I build something similar to a railway track that can then carry a train with goods from one point to another (this is R3 Corda’s flow frameworks and smart contracts that move data and information).

Sometimes we put different legos in a safe box, give them a good hard shake, and a new toy emerges (analogous to Conclave’s computation in a trusted enclave). Like how you build toys that your friends love, we build things that our friends will love.

What has been the biggest highlight/challenge of your career so far?

The biggest highlight of my career is being part of the blockchain industry – to be building and leading teams at R3.

Blockchain technology has the promise and evidence to be as foundational and indispensable as the internet. It is proving to play a significant role in shaping our company and, in doing so, shaping the industry. This is a genuine opportunity of a lifetime. Our business relies heavily on interpersonal relationships with our colleagues, partners, and clients.

Also Read: Try to look at the world through a beginner’s eyes: Joey Alarilla of Playfix.io

In the last two and a half years, the pandemic has challenged and disrupted our ways of building relationships, working collaboratively, and forging meaningful partnerships with customers. 

In addition, hiring, onboarding, and retaining talent virtually was one of the stiffest leadership challenges I have dealt with in the recent past.

R3 was able to weather the storm because our senior-most leaders spent significant time making thoughtful choices for our employees.

How do you envision the next five years of your career?

I envision spending the next few years driving transformational change in technology infrastructure that underpins the financial markets globally and, equally, in the Asia Pacific. We are already in the process of doing so with financial services customers like DTCC, SDX, BIC (India), and other corporate customers like Ericsson and Vodafone.

However, we are just getting started, and there is a long runway ahead. I intend to work closely with my team to deliver large-scale customer projects and make customers successful. And we cannot do that without the help of R3-ers.

Therefore, I envision my next five years entirely devoting my time and energy to finding new talent whilst continuing to develop and support our current talent as best as possible.

What are some of your favourite work tools?

Slack is an everyday essential for me. The collaborative aspect of Slack acts as the R3 team’s bedrock, and it is our go-to tool for internal communication. This goes without mentioning its user-friendly interface and many functions that can be integrated with the app.

So, I consider Slack my favourite tool, considering it integral to my daily work routine.

Besides Slack, Atlassian’s Confluence is another excellent tool that I use on a day-to-day basis. Made by a software company from Australia, Confluence effectively renders R3’s key insights into internal Wiki pages, which is especially helpful in facilitating clarity of thought.

Being able to pen down our ideas and make sense of our thought processes will lead us in the right direction and eliminate the possibility of information misalignment. This translates to more efficient and effective work for the team.

Good organisation and accountability are traits I highly value, especially as a leader when there are multiple things that I often have to juggle. An app that helps to keep me in check is Notion, a note-taking app that’s essentially a second-brain tool. It’s an all-in-one workspace that systematically consolidates all of my tasks, projects, and notes and serves as my primary storage place.

Its minimalistic visuals provide a seamless user interface with regard to connecting and expanding ideas or even sharing them with my teammates. But most importantly, it provides the quickest access to information whenever and wherever I need it. It’s akin to my brain but expanded.

What’s something about you or your job that would surprise us?

Every single one of us can transform if we have adequate self-awareness and a deep desire to change. My belief in this has strengthened over the last few years as I became self-aware and received coaching to work on areas that were a priority for me.

Also Read: We can no longer adopt a cookie-cutter approach to marketing: Gunalan Ram of CINNOX

Subsequently, when I became a coach, I raised awareness in the person I was coaching, which led to significant changes in their life. When I share my belief openly, most people are surprised by my conviction in this and how important it is to me.

Do you prefer WFH or WFO, or hybrid?

I prefer the hybrid model. I find it amusing, however, that it took a pandemic for us to take hybrid working models seriously and implement them globally. Before the pandemic, we would not even have considered hybrid working to be a possibility.

But I’ve now realised the benefits of working from home and the office.

At home, I can zero in on my work and be hyper-focused instead of being prone to disruptions and distractions that may interrupt my workflow in the office.

Working from the office, however, provides its own set of unique benefits, an important one being human interactions with the team. It’s a prerequisite for leaders to know how to build rapport with their team members, which can be challenging to do via a screen or any virtual platform.

Human connection is best built when you share the same environment as your team – physically interacting with them at work and beyond work settings. Human connections are formed based on experiences, whether getting coffee together in the pantry, bouncing ideas off each other in meeting rooms, or having small talks in the hallways — these are all part of this experience of being at work.

But all in all, it still needs to be a healthy balance between working from home and the office. Only with the hybrid model do you get the best of both worlds.

What would you tell your younger self?

I would tell myself to take more risks and travel a lot more! The courage to try new things and allow me the freedom to do first and think later is something I would love to tell young Amit.

The wisdom, life lessons, and values you gain from taking risks and travelling shape you into the person you are. As the saying goes – we are the sum of our experiences. Without risks, I wouldn’t be where I am or who I am today.

Ideally, I would have liked to challenge the mindset of my younger self, where I used to play safe out of cautiousness and take the leap of faith and believe that everything would naturally fall into place. 

Additionally, travelling or living abroad will allow an individual to understand new perspectives better and take in new cultures – this builds character and shapes one’s outlook.

Can you describe yourself in three words?

Coach. Ambitious. Calm.

What are you most likely to be doing if not working?

It’s one of four things – I’m babysitting my four-year-old, being in nature, practising my coaching skills, or writing.

Also Read: Dream loud, dream big and dream now: Surbhi Agarwal of Yellow.ai

Inspired by R3’s CTO, Richard Gendal Brown, a high quality prolific online writer, I’ve recently been practising and honing my writing skills for no objective other than to sharpen my clarity of thought.

I even started my webpage, where I share my perspectives on topics in the cross-section of talent development and leadership and occasionally share a personal story. This is a recent hobby that I am exploring to reinvigorate my creative side. The challenge to improve my writing energises me very much and knowing that I have a long way to go gives me a lot of joy.

What are you currently reading/listening to/ watching?

My current reads:

• Show Your Work by Austin Kleon
• A Simpler Life: A Guide to Greater Serenity, Ease and Clarity by Alain de Botton
• Crucial Conversations: Tools for Talking When The Stakes Are High by Kerry Patterson, Al Switzler, Ron McMillan, and Joseph Kenny

I am interested in human psychology and its role in personal and professional development, fulfilment, and leading a holistic life. I strongly believe in the value of continuous growth as a person, and I constantly want to educate myself on the things that can inspire people, make them happier, and view the world more positively than otherwise.

Being able to internalise contentment, self-satisfaction fully, and inner peace is my ultimate end goal – I would like to learn how to rid myself of material wants and desires and grow through introspection.

I also read to understand better the people around me, which goes a long way for my personal development as a leader, mentor, and coach. It is imperative to find ways to improve myself so that I can better support the growth of the R3 team and be of help to them.

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The holiday season is upon us. We’ve had 10/10, and there’s 11/11, Black Friday, Cyber Monday, 12/12 and Boxing Day Sales still to come. But this year, the online shopping festival season is shaping up to be different from years gone by.

Rising inflation and increasing costs have forced us all to become more price-conscious and selective when it comes to purchasing decisions, even if we think we’re bagging a bargain.

In fact, according to a recent survey by Gartner, 48 per cent of consumers will begin their festive shopping early this year in a bid to beat inflation. While this presents an opportunity for merchants to drive sales during this crucial shopping period, the same report found that consumers are becoming warier of barriers to purchase, meaning that to capture this opportunity, payment service providers (PSPs) must make sure they’re more prepared than ever.

Here are four things that should be on the radar of all payment businesses this shopping season if they’re to help merchants realise success.

Security, security, security

Security is a consistent point of focus in payments, and so it should be. This is even more of an issue during the run-up to the festive season when opportunistic fraud attempts jump about 30 per cent.

Also Read: How e-commerce merchants can capture growth in international markets

As a PSP, if security isn’t top of your agenda yet, it should be. Your security protocols should be set up to maximise detection without declining payments. False positives will not only result in lost sales but a potential drop off in new customers for your merchants because of decreased brand trust.

To prevent any security problems, you should also check your fraud management protocols and make sure they are optimised to run smoothly alongside your merchants’ festive campaigns and promotions.

Drive conversions through data optimisation

Data is key to driving conversions and optimising the customer experience. Today, e-commerce takes place across multiple channels, including Online-to-Offline (O2O), on social media, and even in the metaverse.

Whenever people shop, they make payments, and these payments provide valuable data about consumer preferences. These include how they like to pay, their spending patterns and habits, and preferred payment methods. If you have strong data analytics tools that interpret payment data, you’ll be an even bigger help to your merchants for the festive season and beyond.

Offer the right choice of payment methods

Getting a grip on your data means you can help merchants increase conversions and optimise payments. When it comes to cross-border payments, optimising payment methods is far from a one size fits all approach, particularly in Asia, where the payments landscape is very fragmented.

People won’t hit the buy button if their preferred payment methods aren’t available. And in 2021, local payment methods, digital payment methods used in a particular country or region, accounted for 77 per cent of purchases online.

Make sure that you are providing the right payment methods for the markets you are targeting or work with experts that know your markets and can advise you on which payment methods you need to drive sales for your merchants.

Always have a backup plan

Although the festive shopping season might not be as busy as it was last year, be prepared for unexpected jumps in sales. While many are tightening their belts due to inflation, they are still aware that the online shopping festival season is the time to bag the best deals.

Also Read: The thesis for cross-border e-commerce in Southeast Asia

Even if your payments usually run smoothly, it’s good to have a backup plan in case one or more of your acquirers or processors has any issues. To manage this, have a clear communications plan ready to use with your merchants in case payments are disrupted. Similarly, you should also consider creating internal protocols to manage disruptions.

For example, if your credit card processor has a disruption, do you have a cross-functional crisis management team in place to troubleshoot? Do people in merchant-facing positions like customer support and sales know what to do and how to respond? What’s your plan of action?

Ironing out how you’ll respond to disruption scenarios and creating a clear communications plan helps ensure when they do happen, everything will be kept under control. And if you’re prepared, it’ll go a long way towards letting your merchants know they’re your priority during this important time of year.

So, if you let all the above sink in and make adjustments where necessary, you’ll be well on your way to being prepared and primed for success ahead of 2023’s shopping festival season.

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Global private market exchange ADDX has raised approximately US$20 million in a pre-Series B round of financing led by KB Securities, a subsidiary of South Korea’s largest banking group KB Financial Group.

The round kicked off in May 2022, when ADDX announced a US$58 million raise from the Stock Exchange of Thailand, Hamilton Lane, and UOB.

This brings the total funds raised by ADDX since its inception in 2017 to around US$140 million. The company also counts the Singapore Exchange, Temasek subsidiary Heliconia Capital, Tokai Tokyo Financial Holdings, and the Development Bank of Japan among its investors.

The startup will use the fresh capital to grow ADDX Advantage, a wealth management platform launched earlier this year for private banks, brokerages and family offices. A portion of the funds will go into global expansion.

Also Read: For Web3 to take off, we need to fix the rigidity problem of smart contracts

ADDX allows individual investors access to private market deals that have traditionally been open only to institutional investors, such as sovereign wealth funds and endowment funds. These include private credit and other fixed-income investments, private equity, hedge funds, and private real estate.

The exchange, regulated by the Monetary Authority of Singapore, uses blockchain and smart contract technology to automate manual processes. This reduces the minimum subscription sizes from US$1 million to US$5,000 while allowing secondary trading.

Oi-Yee Choo, CEO of ADDX, said: “The fundamental design of private markets — how and to whom securities are distributed, and whether secondary trading is facilitated — has transformed more over the past two years than it has over the two decades before that. The impact of that change has been positive: access to the means of wealth creation is becoming equal, and capital can flow unimpeded to the most efficient financing projects. In the long run, smooth and seamless capital markets will uplift growth in the real economy, with dividends for both workers and investors.”

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Many years ago, in the tech industry, there was this persistent belief that e-commerce would destroy and replace retail in the heart of customers. But fast forward to 2022, despite the prevalence of e-commerce and the challenges that retail continues to face, the two industries continue to co-exist. Instead of competing, they ended up complementing and supporting each other.

According to Looi Qin En, Principal at Saison Capital, at an Echelon 2022 panel discussion on October 28 at Resorts World Sentosa, this would be the direction that Web3 and Web2 companies are taking in the future.

But before they can fully embrace and implement Web3 technologies and business models, there are misconceptions to clear.

“One of the biggest misconceptions we have right now about Web3 is that in building Web3, you can apply the same principles as in Web2. For example, in the matters of how you go to market, how you bring your products, none of the traditional ways of marketing really works,” he said. “There has to be a change in mindset.”

Another common misconception involved what Web3 technologies actually entail. Speaking in the same panel as Looi, Rishi Randhawa, Head of Web3 Innovation at Enjinstarter, pointed out that most of the public today is already familiar with popular Web3-related terms such as NFTs, but that is often the extent of their understanding.

Also Read: Blockchain promises to be as foundational and indispensable as internet: Amit Ghosh of R3

“If I ask the audience, how many of you have heard of NFTs? I’m pretty sure 80-90 per cent of you would put your hands up. But if you ask people you know, how many of you have a wallet? Probably about 10 per cent,” he said.

“There’s a lot more to Web3 than just NFTs. I think every business, every brand will have its own objectives, its own challenges that require them to look at the new set of tools and the new set of ways of working to achieve finance.”

This is something that Xander van der Heijden, CEO at UNL, agreed on. “We’ve come a long way, but many of the Web3 technology and infrastructures today are used for cryptocurrencies when blockchain and distributed ledger can solve real-world problems. But that’s where we need to go.”

Building a Web3-friendly culture

For Web2 companies who are looking to start implementing Web3 technologies and business models, where should they start? According to the panellists, they can begin building a company culture that can help team members shift to a “Web3 mindset” more seamlessly.

As Looi put it, Web3 is about “a change in how we are looking at our community and our audiences.”

For Shaun Heng, Head of Spartan Labs at The Spartan Group, from the organisational perspective, a company can start by setting up a small group of employees who are passionate about the space.

Also Read: Web2 founders, get ready for Web3 before 2025 – Insights from Echelon 2022

“Just having this sense of commonality, stepping up and sharing information is already a good starting point,” he stressed. “You don’t need to revamp your entire business model right away. You don’t need to build everything on the blockchain just because you want to expand to Web3. Start small by having the culture embedded in the organisation itself.”

“Subsequently, you will pick up a new model. Once you get a bit more momentum … the employees are on this journey together. This way, you can take a bit more risk, but you don’t need to start with a goal in mind.”

When it comes to case studies, van der Heijden named Reddit as one example of a Web2 platform that had successfully transition into Web3 —in just four months— with the launch of its NFT marketplace.

“You got to listen to the audience. Speak to that community. Figure out what they could be interested in,” he stressed.

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