Influencers have an undeniable impact on audiences. With the potential to affect user’s brand favourability and self-confidence, content creators have the weighted responsibility to ensure their platforms authentically benefit and uplift followers. Amid these unprecedented times, compassionate and purposeful engagement is even more paramount.

Social media can be a powerful catalyst for good. As evidenced by viral cause campaigns such as #FridayForFuture and #StopHateForProfit , it is clear that purpose, inclusion and diversity are important user and brand considerations.

In a 2019 Deloitte report, 55 per cent of audiences felt brands should actively engage with causes. This strongly held belief is further supported by a 2020 Porter Novelli study where 64 per cent of consumers claim to have selected, switched and boycotted a brand based on its stance on social and environmental issues alone.

Interestingly, 35 per cent of digital users claimed an influencer inspired them to advocate for a cause with 52 per cent spreading awareness and 51 per cent making a donation as a result. Impact-driven engagement can deepen connections between digital users and content creators.

With the notion of purpose meaning something to all, this amplified affinity can be specially cultivated by creators who authentically align with followers’ values. As trusted voices, influencers have the privileged capacity to incrementally impact a cause. For brands working with influencers, the prospect of doing good can motivate heightened dedication to collaboration.

Recently, WHO partnered with INCA, GroupM’s influencer marketing solution, to carry out a global cause campaign to help fight the spread of COVID-19. Over 47,000 influencers, from celebrity Selena Gomez to renowned sports team Real Madrid, disseminated key health and safety information about social distancing and proper hygiene.

Garnering 34 million Instagram engagements and over three billion TikTok video views in two weeks, it made clear that influencers can catalyse awareness and action. That said, influencers have also gone astray. During The Blacks Lives Matter protests, multiple
creators were caught disingenuously participating to promote their online personas.

Also Read: Ex-Grabbers’ startup Evo raises seed funding to help influencers, live-streamers optimise back-office ops

Locally, Singaporean influencer Xiaxue and Malaysia’s ex-Miss Universe Samantha Katie James faced social media fury after releasing controversial statements on race. Shortly after, both lost partnerships with brands such as Daniel Wellington and Velvet Vanity Cosmetics, respectively. Acknowledging that genuity and sensitivity are key, how can creators, brands and marketers appropriately
incorporate and promote purpose in influencer marketing strategies?

Transparency

Audiences are becoming hyper-aware of ‘woke washing’, or instances where a brand or influencer advocates for causes that do not reflect previous actions. This can be detrimental to credibility and trust as evidenced by online boycotts of Jo Malone and HSBC earlier this year.

Conversely, the choice to not acknowledge can similarly spark strong user reactions. Instead, influencers need to be open about their efforts or lack thereof. With the latter, creators should transparently convey intentions to improve and create space for discussion by encouraging audiences to share relevant insights and experiences.

Commitment

For both influencers and brands, advocating for good entails a heightened commitment to learn from and listen to audiences. Social listening tools can give marketers insight into follower sentiments, dictating when best to express solidarity and promote calls to action.

Inclusivity and diversity is an especially pertinent topic with 69 per cent of Gen-Z and millennials reporting positive reactions to ads with diverse models . Efforts should go beyond visual representation however, by using the powerful reach of brand and creator platforms to sincerely amplify unique voices.

For example, hosting social media takeovers. Cause campaigns similarly need to take additional steps by leading with validated facts and figures, redirecting to essential resources and giving exposure to relevant third-sector organisations.

Consistency

One-off diversity campaigns or cause-related posts are insufficient. Instead, influencers and brands must continue being transparent and committed. This begins by genuinely evaluating how this extra lens of consideration can naturally complement core content strategies.

With ongoing efforts to listen and learn from audience sentiments, deep user engagement can be truly fostered and harnessed for sustainable change. Engaging with purpose is an alternate way to forge trusted and authentic relationships with audiences.

Influencers, privileged with reach, credibility and reliability, are uniquely positioned to be a powerful force for change. It is up to us as marketers, brands and content creators to harness this potential in genuine, authentic and accountable ways.

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Editor’s note: e27 aims to foster thought leadership by publishing contributions from the community. Become a thought leader in the community and share your opinions or ideas and earn a byline by submitting a post.

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The pandemic hit the Vietnamese economy and labour market hard. With inevitable lockdowns and social distancing, the job market has come to a standstill or even shrank. 31.8 million Vietnamese people aged 15 and over were negatively affected by COVID-19 in the forms of unemployment, staggered working hours, and income decrease, according to Vietnam’s General Statistics Office.

However, the country’s labour market has shown signs of a moderate recovery in the third quarter of 2020, especially with the rise of gig employment.

Gig jobs arising, especially in the food delivery sector

The gig economy has been here for a long time, but only when COVID-19 came around is it being embraced like never before.

Undoubtedly, food delivery is one of the most popular gig jobs. As more people are forced to stay indoors, online delivery has become a lifeline for people to purchase necessities from their homes’ comfort.

This results in greater demand for delivery drivers to accommodate such needs, thereby creating loads of gig employment opportunities. Many are now turning to part-time food delivery gigs for additional – or even primary – income during these unprecedented times. Surprisingly enough, women are making up increasing numbers of the delivery workforce.

Vietnamese women making inroads into food delivery

A recent International Labour Organisation study shows that most ASEAN countries saw a larger decline in working hours and employment for women than men due to COVID-19, and Vietnam was no exception.

The prolonged pandemic would further delay the return of women with children to the job market. All of the above explains why more and more women opt for food delivery as an alternate career option to make up for lost income.

Also Read: Making cross-border partnerships work within a Covid-19 reality

A spokesperson at the Vietnamese delivery startup Loship shares that the number of new female drivers signing up for their platform even more than double in the past year, particularly when COVID-19 took a heavy toll on Vietnamese women’s income.

“We are seeing an increase in drivers signing up for Loship, and a large percentage are women whose careers have been impacted by the pandemic. As a local food delivery startup, we aim to create more high-value jobs for Vietnamese women, fostering a culture of diversity and enabling livelihood opportunities across the country,” Loship CEO Trung Hoang Nguyen said.

The uptrend is likely to continue not only in Vietnam but globally as well. Amazon, Indian e-commerce firm Flipkart, or unicorn startup Swiggy are increasingly hiring women for two significant reasons, low attrition and higher retention.

At DoorDash, 55 per cent of the drivers are women, or women at US-based ride-sharing platform Lyft make up over a fifth of all drivers. This is all proof of the potential of women in this male-dominated industry, and how tech companies are continually creating many job opportunities for women.

Vo Thi Thanh Suong (Aunt Suong) is a typical female food-delivery worker in Vietnam. She has been part of Loship’s driver fleet for almost a year, ever since the start of the pandemic. Despite the age constraint, she excelled in some long-distance orders up to 30km from the city centre to the suburbs.

“I’m 60 years old, a woman, and still can drive. You’re never too old, or too weak, to try and work. As long as you’ve got a bike and you’re motivated, you’ve got something to give you some income and stability,” shared Aunt Suong.

Or, Truong Thi Hai Duong, who is also in her 60s, has worked as a Loship’s delivery-partner for almost a year. Since the pandemic outbreak, her work has been busier than before due to the increased customer demand. She averages 20 deliveries a day in the 9 AM to 6 PM shift and seems to be enjoying her job. “I enjoy the freedom and flexibility of the gig job. It allows me to focus on my family during the day and pick-up work where and when it best fits into my schedule,” she says.

Also Read: Understanding the economics of food delivery platforms

With more women aspiring to join the food delivery gig workforce, this employment trend could have a major impact on the future of the gig economy at large. And it’s likely to stay for the foreseeable future, especially when the job market is still struggling to get back to normal, and a number of traditional jobs are not coming back anytime soon.

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Traditional real estate management systems are difficult to maintain and upgrade. In order to keep up with the dynamic landscapes of commercial real estate, it is essential to make use of the best that technology has to offer.  So what is the best that technology has to offer?

Citizen development and no-code platforms.

The one thing that traditional real estate management systems lack is their ability to customise an application. Real estate companies cannot afford such compromises considering the new set of challenges placed on landlords and tenants during the pandemic and especially at a time where competition is at its peak.

In order to thrive, real estate companies need to adopt no-code platforms to efficiently manage different aspects such as marketing, leasing, properties, tenants, and investments.

No-code offers development platforms and tools to create new applications without the need for a single line of code. These platforms use a combination of drag and drop graphical interfaces and templates to enable non-IT professionals to create and optimise an application.

These no-code applications are highly customisable and can be updated with just a few clicks.

You don’t need a four-year computer science degree or a professional to use these tools. Your imagination is all that is needed to build the necessary administrative and operational apps.

The best part?

No-code apps are built based on existing spreadsheets and databases. They provide speed and flexibility for your real estate or property management business at the fraction of the cost of traditional digital solutions.

Also Read: How today’s fast-growing companies can solve the real estate problem

At the same time, no-code apps can also be key to improving customer experience and nurturing long-lasting relations with your clients.  Whether you’re a solo real estate agent or are running an agency, no-code apps can be a game-changer when it comes to your operations.

The role of no-code in real estate

Agents can plan their next customer acquisition strategy with advanced reports and dashboards. With better and smarter forms, automated alerts, notifications, and reminders, No-code apps provide quick and easy access to information. Agents can collaborate with contractors, clients, and their real estate team, all at the same time.

Property portfolio 

Instead of storing each entry in complex databases, real estate agents can safely connect the necessary data to a no-code application which creates a list of the properties they are currently working with. By having immediate access to information such as a map, costs, facilities, power, and more, real estate agents can increase productivity and improve customer relations by providing a seamless experience.

Agent reporting 

It is difficult for all agents of a real estate firm to be up to date with an overview of each person’s work. The only simple solution in this scenario is to use a dashboard to keep track of each and every agent’s reporting, clients, and the status of each client.

With a no-code app, agents get instant access to deals closed, properties in progress, and much more. This saves time and provides ideas for new strategies to boost real estate agent performance.

Facility management 

From monitoring cleaning to conducting checks and keeping track of excel files, no-code apps let agents store and review all data on one screen. All relevant information about the maintenance of different properties stored on a single platform will help to avoid misunderstands and increases performance in real estate management.

Time tracking 

Filling endless time sheets at the end of the month is inconvenient and time-consuming. No-code platforms allow each employee to enter the hours they have worked for different clients from a few clicks on their phone. Activities can also be divided into different categories for better organisation. The time saved on documentation can have a positive effect on the customer experience and the performance of the agency.

Also Read: From brick-and-mortar to e-commerce in just 7 steps and no-code

Finances 

Real estate agents can handle the process of preparing quotes and offers for customers by setting up a no-code app. The Low-code app also makes use of formulas to calculate quotes on the basis of the numbers provided. This makes it much easier and faster to deliver offers to leads and clients.

Real estate agencies can get rid of inefficient excel based budget spreadsheets and can automate the budget approval process, and track employee use of financial resources. Through a custom dashboard with the reports and charts, agents can gain insights needed for efficient tracking and decision making.

How no-code platforms have helped the real estate industry

Quixy helps Assetmonk cut-down overall application processing time by 70 per cent

Investor management and tracking of investment applications manually were tough tasks for Assetmonk as the company grew.  In turn, Assetmonk faced higher costs, slower investor conversions, and a loss of competitive edge.

The Assetmonk team implemented a no-code platform known as Quixy,  to automate their end-to-end customer on-boarding processes spanning upload, review, and approval of application and payment processing. Customers were able to submit their applications and upload their documents from phone, tablet, or computer.

Once submitted, the backend team was automatically notified to process the application through the verification and approval steps. Customers had one-touch access to their application status without having to make any calls.

With Quixy, Assetmonk was able to cut down the overall application processing time by 70 per cent, resource cost for on-field executives by 80 per cent while also enhancing customer experience.

Isola Homes builds a better world through Quick Base

Seattle-based Isola Homes was in desperate need of a system that could manage all the deadlines, materials, and resources for the 130 construction projects it runs annually. With such a large number of projects, it was hard to keep track of the innumerable spreadsheets and custom databases.

Quick Base built an application as a solution for Isola Homes to keep up to speed and to manage manager key processes of construction management. The no-code application enabled Isola Homes to streamline its document creation and signature tracking processes through integration.

By consolidating paper-based processes into one web app that can be shared with clients and vendors, Isola Homes delivers a world-class experience to everyone with whom it does business.

Mendix uses low-code to turn real estate portfolios into “smart buildings”

Mendix, a Siemens business and global leader in low-code application development for the enterprise, assisted a Netherlands-based “smart building” solutions provider, called Octo to digitally enable remote building management and inspections for real estate managers and property owners.

Octo’s solution integrates data sourced from the internet of things (IoT) sensors, artificial intelligence (AI), and drone imaging technology to conduct asset management, digital inspections, and predictive building maintenance. This application has enables customers to manage thousands of buildings.

Also Read: How no-code development for startups is a launchpad to success

Their most recent offering is a COVID-19-related application called HeadsUpp. The reservation and notification app enables building and office managers to monitor indoor occupancy levels and maintain social distancing for companies seeking to reopen facilities after pandemic-related lockdowns.

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Editor’s note: e27 aims to foster thought leadership by publishing contributions from the community. Become a thought leader in the community and share your opinions or ideas and earn a byline by submitting a post.

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Live streaming was already booming before COVID-19 hit. It exploded into an even bigger industry as most people worldwide saw the need to hunker in at home and find entertainment and work options through the internet.

A Market Research Future report projects that the live streaming market will be valued at US$247.3 billion by 2027. This expansion is attributed to the rise of various social media platforms and the growing interest and involvement of content producers and consumers worldwide.

Content monetisation has become a highly enticing opportunity for many that even celebrities have already set up monetised social media and live streaming accounts. A separate study by Fortune Business Insights has even more optimistic numbers.

It estimates the total value of the video streaming market to be worth US$842.93 billion by 2027, the biggest portion of which is live streaming.

“The streaming type segment is categorised into live and on-demand streaming. Among these, live streaming holds the largest market share, whereas, on-demand streaming is expected to show the highest CAGR in the coming years,” the report writes.

More than serving individual online video consumers

Live streaming at present has evolved from being aimed at individual online video consumers to providing live video services for enterprises. Many live streaming companies now serve as platforms for businesses to take advantage of live online videos for marketing, product selling, training, and other purposes.

Singaporean startup BeLive, for example, is offering live streaming services to help companies with their marketing, presentation, and training activities.

It provides a comprehensive platform with various tools for businesses to harness the power of live streaming to connect with customers or better engage employees and clients. BeLive has raised a total of S$3 million (US$2.2 million) in funding, and the 50-strong company has offices in Singapore, Ho Chi Minh City, and Shenzhen.

Also Read: Singapore music collab platform BandLab acquires music livestreaming service Chew

The pandemic has forced most businesses to go online. This rush towards digitalising business processes has inevitably resulted in stiffer competition. Businesses cannot afford to be passive lest they allow potential customers to go to competitors that invest in aggressive promotions and customer engagement activities.

The viability of the Asian market

Asia appears to be one of the best markets for companies that offer live streaming solutions. With its growing middle-class and relatively tech-savvy young population, businesses that plan to include live streaming in their revamped business models have a sizeable number of potential consumers and business clients to target.

Infoholic Research LLP’s “Asian Live Stream Market: Drivers, Restraints, Opportunities, Trends, and Forecasts, 2017–2023” report estimates that the Asian live stream market revenues will hit US$71.7 billion by 2023. It also projects the market to grow at a CAGR of 46.4 per cent within the 2017-2023 forecast period.

“Growth rate of the Asian Live Stream Market is more than that of the global average and the region is improving its infrastructure capabilities such as high-speed internet, the internet and smartphone penetration rates, to build the technology infrastructure and thereby attract investments in several other sectors as well,” the report writes.

Companies launching their own live-streaming platforms

BeLive has powered more than 54 million streaming hours to date. Its business model is an excellent demonstration of the live streaming market opportunities in Asia, particularly its existing ties with a number of major Asian corporations. Being the leading live streaming platform provider in Asia, it offers a glimpse of the current and future Asian live streaming business landscape.

Japan’s Rakuten Live, one of BeLive’s top clients, serves a user base of more than 100 million. BeLive powers Rakuten’s live streaming service that enables companies and merchants to engage customers through social media influencers and product endorsements. It also incorporated an e-commerce feature that allows viewers to buy products while watching live streams.

BeLive CEO Kenneth Tan says that the streaming service allows companies to boost their existing business while providing the opportunity to expand into a new venture just like what Rakuten did with Rakuten Live. Rakuten’s main business is e-commerce.

Also Read: Kamcord’s mobile game livestreaming app goes live in Korea, Japan 

Tan believes that his company offers a compelling proposition with its economic benefits for businesses that white-label the platform. “They could test their ideas in the market at a lower cost and at a much quicker pace if they adopted our technology,” Tan explains.

Companies that are remotely related to video streaming can explore opportunities from the booming live streaming market by using technologies or platforms supplied by another company.

Live selling

Along with the pandemic came the explosion of live online selling. Since most establishments have been restricted from conducting face-to-face business with their customers, many turned to the internet to sell their products through live video streaming.

However, it is not only small businesses that are powering the growing popularity of live online selling. Larger enterprises, too, have found ways to use live videos to reach out to prospective customers. This is particularly big in China, where companies hire social media celebrities as well as ordinary salespeople to promote products through live video streams.

Alibaba’s Taobao Live is regarded as the biggest live selling player in China and the rest of Asia, cornering around 80 per cent of the Chinese market. Its rapid growth amid the pandemic is an indicator of how live selling has risen to undeniable relevance in the Asian market.

It can be said that its success sparked counterpart services from Baidu and JD.com, which have partnered with Douyin and Kuaishou to livestream online programmes through which consumers can also shop.

Live online selling is not just some alternative for businesses to get by during the lockdowns. It also has palpable benefits. Tan points out how their clients “have seen an average of 20 per cent add-to-cart rate” by selling through live video streaming.

He also highlights its advantage of engaging customers, saying that “70 per cent of viewers who join a live stream (leave a) comment, and 40 per cent of them ask product-related questions.”

Train or engage employees and partners

Another way live streaming benefits businesses is by boosting engagement with employees and business partners. With remote work becoming part of the new normal across Asia, companies would have to get used to doing training, brainstorming, meetings, and other business activities online. Not all companies are equipped for this kind of setup, though.

Also Read: Philippines-based livestream mobile app Kumu raises US$1.2M seed funding

“We’re being forced into the world’s largest work-from-home experiment and, so far, it hasn’t been easy for a lot of organisations to implement,” says Gartner Senior Director Saikat Chatterjee.

In a snap poll at a webinar for HR chiefs conducted by Gartner, 91 per cent said that they have already implemented remote work arrangements since the start of the pandemic, but the HR heads reported that their biggest challenge has been the lack of infrastructure and difficulties in adapting to the new ways of doing work.

Companies welcome the availability of third-party solutions to augment their inadequacies in terms of technology and expertise. There’s a reason why tech giants like Samsung rely on smaller companies for specific needs in their operations.

Online education

While the general consensus is that online learning cannot replace traditional face-to-face schooling, there are many opportunities in the need for reliable platforms to facilitate online classes.

As early as February 2022, the city of Wuhan in China showed the opportunities for companies to move to education verticals, as more than 900,000 students shifted to online learning. The city did not have enough online education platforms to support the sudden explosion in the need for online classes. As such, live-streaming and short video services have redirected their resources to address remote learning requirements.

In a Global Times interview, independent industry analyst Liu Dingding said that “it is necessary for these internet platforms to enter the educational sector at present because they are good at providing broadband services with large servers … while traditional education services can provide good quality education.”

Many Asian cultures are known for their high regard for formal education. It will not be difficult to convince governments as well as families to spend on online learning platforms and tools to ensure organised learning.

Live video streaming has come a long way. Online videos are no longer just options for entertainment and simple online conferences. The Asian market shows how innovative companies can create new niches and find profitability in novel business models. Any company can have its own profitable live streaming platform using third-party technology.

With some ingenuity, businesses can find other ways to monetise relatively commonplace activities. Also, live streaming is a viable product that businesses can offer to other businesses.

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Editor’s note: e27 aims to foster thought leadership by publishing contributions from the community. Become a thought leader in the community and share your opinions or ideas and earn a byline by submitting a post.

Join our e27 Telegram group, FB community or like the e27 Facebook page

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In Indonesia, one of the major problems facing the agriculture industry is the existence of multiple layers between the farmer and the end consumer.

As a result, farmers fail to obtain the right price for their produce and are forced to sell them for a song, with the middlemen taking the bigger chunk.

Segari, a startup born in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic, wants to address this problem using technology, and it has already caught the attention of the region’s top VCs.

The grocery startup has just announced that it has secured what claims to be one of the largest seed funding rounds in Indonesia. Led by Singapore’s early-stage VC firm Beenext, it also saw participation from AC Ventures, Saison Capital and a few undisclosed angel investors.

Slides: Indonesia’s agritech ecosystem report 2019

Segari will use the capital to build the infrastructure needed from upstream to downstream while maintaining the quality of the produce.

“Although 30 per cent of Indonesia’s workforce is engaged in agriculture in one way or the other, many inefficiencies still exist in the industry. The existence of multiple layers between the farmer and the end customers is one,” said Segari co-founder Yosua Setiawan.

“While commerce is being disrupted by Tokopedia and Shopee, and the transportation industry by gojek and Grab, the agriculture sector has seen very little innovation. Segari wants to change this,” he added.

The company was founded in 2020 by the trio of Setiawan (CEO), Farand Anugerah (COO) and Farandy Ramadhana (CTO). A silver medalist at the National Physics Olympics, Setiawan has previously worked at Boston Consulting Group and Traveloka.

Anugerah, a Harvard Business School alumnus, has in the past worked at Grab Indonesia & Philippines. Ramadhana is an alumnus of UC Berkeley and worked at Amazon, Google Ads team in Silicon Valley and Moka before co-founding Segari.

How Segari works

A consumer can place his orders on Segari’s website or mobile app before 5 pm. Segari’s team will then fulfil the orders with the farmers and suppliers, bring the items to the warehouse, check for the quality, and then package them. By 6 am the next day, the startup’s logistics team takes the items from the warehouse for delivery before 10 am.

The startup says it is working with thousands of farmers all around Java and several vegetable farmer communities in West Java. The company helps them make decisions about what to plant, how much and when to harvest.

It also has communities of fruit farmers in Central Java where it has contracted for specific grades of fruits at specific prices, which allows Segari to have consistent and sufficient supply.

“To give the best freshness, our operation team ensures that it only takes 15 hours from harvest to your home for green vegetables. This involves extreme operational complexity. Because we do not keep inventory, we need to generate tight forecasting of customer demand, and balance it with the harvesting schedule of our farmers,” said COO Anugerah.

The startup says it employs experienced teams for quality check and product handling. It boasts of four different temperature areas in its warehouse to maintain the freshness of the produce.

For example, it keeps bananas at 16-20 degree Celsius so that they can ripe optimally, while the grapes are kept at -5 degree Celsius.

Trust deficit

According to the startup, despite the COVID-19 crisis, Indonesian consumers today are still reluctant to shop fresh produce and grocery products online. Most individuals living in Jakarta still go to supermarkets and traditional markets to purchase grocery items.

Surveys find that consumers still do not fully trust transacting online for fresh produce, fearing that they may receive bad quality produce. Those who have attempted to shop fresh produce online share that the quality they receive is inconsistent.

“Getting to a high level of quality and consistency is hard. Not everyone can do it, but that’s why we make it our focus. While other players may focus on wide SKU variety, cheapest prices, or other areas, we build our infrastructure to focus on quality. This is what our customers love about us, and make many of them purchase from us every week,” said Setiawan.

Setiawan further shared that Segari leverages its micro-warehouses and network of thousands of agents all around Jakarta to help move tons of its fresh produce every day while maintaining its quality.

“Otherwise, you’ll end up with 15-30 per cent wastage, as seen in a typical supermarket. This is also partially the reason we can offer the highest quality produce at cheaper prices than most supermarkets,” said Anugerah.

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Image Credit: Segari

The post Ex-Traveloka, Grab execs’ one-year-old online fresh grocery startup Segari raises seed funding led by Beenext appeared first on e27.

In the past month, we at e27 have been diligently looking through past coverages of the Southeast Asian tech startup ecosystem.

We were on the lookout for companies that, at the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic in the region, have managed to go beyond surviving the day. Not only that these companies keep their business running, but they also got to make notable achievements in 2020.

Behind every great company, in addition to its founders and investors, is an amazing individual whose ideas and leadership have contributed greatly to its success. These individuals are the e27 Luminaries — and our mission is to find and put the spotlight on them.

In the past week, we have started reaching out to these companies to inform them about their nomination to the initiative. Companies that have been chosen will get to pick the individual who will represent it in the e27 Luminaries list once it is published.

You might wonder if your company is the lucky one; you might also wonder about the factors that we are considering when selecting these companies. So, we are laying down the details:

In general, companies in the e27 Luminaries list are being divided into these five main categories:

Pivots

Companies that redirected their business during the pandemic and comes out stronger than before.

Funding and Acquisitions

Companies that continue to gain investors’ trust during the most challenging of times.

Also Read: Year of the e27 Luminaries: A celebration of the unsung heroes of the SEA startup ecosystem

Partnership

By teaming up with fellow industry players, these companies are moving the ecosystem forward.

Expansion

The pandemic did not stop these companies from exploring and foraying into new markets.

Breakthrough

The odds may not be in their favour, but these companies persevere and secure their places in the tech startup ecosystem.

For each category, we are listing down companies that have fulfilled the basic criteria of being based in Asia and having quality products or services in the market. They also need to have a good reputation in the media (No scandals, please!) and an updated profile in the e27 Startup Database.

They will also need to answer the following criteria satisfyingly:

– Have they raised significant external funding? Or if they are bootstrapping, do they have a healthy financial condition?
– Have they been covered by e27 or other reputable media?
– Do they have a strong social media presence?
– Are they available in other markets, or looking forward to?
– Last but not least, do they have a diverse team in terms of race, gender, nationality, ability, and sexuality?

Those are the elements that make up the e27 Luminaries.

As we near the end of March, we are getting closer to the celebration of unsung heroes of the Southeast Asian tech startup ecosystem.

Looking forward to seeing you there.

The post For e27 Luminaries, we are looking for companies that fulfill the following criteria appeared first on e27.

Like so many others in the months leading up to the pandemic, I had just joined a new company and was super excited to get started in my new role overseeing marketing and brand for a young ambitious start-up. I came from senior roles at the Financial Times, where I had been based in London and New York, as well as South China Morning Post, where I worked out of Hong Kong.

Now, I was joining a Singapore-headquartered company that had operations across Asia, primarily in Southeast Asia, but also in China and India. Entering the startup world was relatively novel to me, but I knew the company I was joining (Advance Intelligence Group) would offer entirely new challenges and growth opportunities.

Shortly after, having been in the new role for less than six months and starting to hit my stride, COVID-19 hit …

Now, over one year on, I can see the whole period with 20/20 hindsight and there are some takeaways for marketers and brand chiefs, but also startups in general, that I would like to share.

With the global pandemic forcing almost every economy into lockdown, operational resiliency and brand communications became paramount. This was true both internally (for employees and inventors) and externally (for partners, customers, and the wider market).

Brand-level responses to customers in a crisis

As we climb out of the pandemic and put the worst months behind us, it’s becoming even more important for brands to build a strong and lasting emotional connection with consumers – beyond just its product offerings. 

Let me give you an example of how we approached this last year, in what were arguably the darkest days of COVID-19 for many. At Atome, our buy now pay later (BNPL) consumer brand where I spend much of my time and energy, we spent not hours, days, or even weeks, but three months speaking with dozens of customers in in-depth interviews and focus groups.

Why? Because we saw the pressing need to deeply understand their changing needs and preferences as the world was changing around us. 

This turned out to be a key turning point for the Atome brand, and provided valuable insights in terms of how our customers thought about spending, money management, lifestyle, and much more. 

Also Read: Why Absolute Pricing Authority and Costco branding concept are good for emerging markets

From a brand and marketing perspective, the result was a new ‘Triple A’ brand pillar around Aspiration, Access, and Advice that we introduced at the core of the business.

In addition to this, we underwent a complete brand refresh at Atome when many other businesses were still trying to pull themselves above the waterline.

Of course, a large part of our business is B2B, serving enterprises rather than individual consumers.

As such, it was important to also think about branding and marketing lessons from a B2B perspective over the past 12 months. Arguably it’s even more important for B2B businesses to make an effort for their customers and clients to feel the people behind the product.

During the pandemic, we made great efforts in this part of our business to better communicate how we were serving our B2B customers amid all the challenges. As well as this, we spent a lot of time thinking about how we as an enterprise business actually shared many of the same concerns as our customers – and how we could therefore explore solutions to address those issues.

This brings me to the next important brand decision we made: proactively listening to feedback and responding to requests and questions in a timely manner – day in day out through the pandemic.

As much as possible, but especially during a crisis, brands must reduce friction and hassle for customers while creating innovative features that improve their experience and delight. 

This leads to what I call the ‘brand promise’ – delivering on the product or service as marketed – being experienced by the end-user as consistent across touchpoints (mobile, desktop, online, offline, etc.).

A good brand takes care of its employees

I’d like to now move on from the past and look more to our future in terms of where we’re heading as a company and brand, going from a regional startup to a global operation.

As of the time of writing, Advance Intelligence Group (under which we have brands like Atome, e-commerce platform Genie, and enterprise AI company ADVANCE.AI) is looking at expanding into the UK and Europe.

Also Read: 5 marital lessons that apply to every startup

Having come out of the pandemic stronger than when we went in, it is now exciting for us to look ahead to new global challenges. But, of course, there are still areas we have to be diligent about and pay close attention to.

As with any start-up that is rapidly expanding, it’s so important to maintain a cohesive and positive company culture. While in much of the article I’ve talked about our customers and our brand from an outside-in perspective, I want to finish by really hitting home the importance of brand power to a company’s own internal stakeholders – namely its employees.

Exercises such as Town Halls, Feedback Days, and ‘In Conversation With’ sessions have helped us build effective top-down and bottom-up communications throughout the brand over the past year, and these are initiatives we will continue going forward.

In addition, we have implemented various morale-boosting activities to address the challenges and constraints of COVID-19, even as many of our people are working from home. 

For example, it was so rewarding for me to run a four-week campaign titled ‘For a Better Me’ to celebrate the company’s fourth Anniversary, as well as hosting New Year parties, which really brought all our employees closer together. 

These events, which resulted in a company culture that everyone felt part of (even as we operate across 10 markets), were participated in by almost 1,000 of our 2,000 employees across the company.

I passionately believe that without strong women in leadership roles, most companies would not have been as successful as a brand during and coming out of the pandemic. It’s my hope that other business leaders reading this will take note and make changes accordingly, if they haven’t already done so.

Diversity in workplace builds brand resilience

Throughout this pandemic, I’ve discovered that a moment of crisis actually provided an opportunity for me as a woman, and my female colleagues around me, to help the company’s brand shine through the chaos.

I’d like to highlight that, despite all the progress of the industry over recent years, there still remains a great need for more diversity in the tech space.

Also Read: Three lessons from building a fintech startup that is 80 per cent women

This absolutely includes the need for more women in senior leadership roles, including on the branding and marketing side. With more women in the workplace, tech companies can generate more innovation, growth, and revenue. 

Moreover, women are often able to leverage resiliency, empathy, and strong communication skills to improve collaboration and build a more positive corporate culture. These have proven to be key ingredients for survival during the global pandemic.

Like many women, in the early stages of my career, I was surrounded by a heavily male-dominated environment and workplace. Today, I like to think of my experience in both Asia and the West has taught me important lessons on how businesses stand to benefit from increasing the number of women in their talent pool and leadership teams.

Especially in Asia, where men still hold authority and power in most business contexts, we really need to be laser-focused on increasing women in tech over the coming decade. 

Female leaders help to improve not only the decision-making process but also make it more likely that a startup will be able to successfully overcome tough challenges while developing the business with a grand vision.

So what’s my advice to women aspiring to leadership roles at tech companies, but also in other industries (such as media, where I spent much of my career)?

My advice for aspiring female leaders

Be yourself

Don’t feel pressured into changing yourself to fit in the environment, especially if you are surrounded by mostly male peers in the workplace. There is no need to pretend to be tough and strong – you can show your vulnerability to build greater trust with others. 

I’ve learned that women’s strong sense of empathy and compassion can provide you with unique values during challenging times.

Be confident and fearless

Women have the tendency of avoiding conflict or being perceived as aggressive, and this can lead to us underestimating our own competency and potential. 

Stay true to your thoughts and be willing to express or even challenge others, which will help you build the confidence to influence others, make changes or take risks. 

Tied to this is being less self-critical and understanding that when we make mistakes it’s important to focus on the present and future, rather than dwelling on the past. 

Also Read: SATURDAYS closes seed funding from Alpha JWC, others to scale its eyewear brand in Indonesia

Lean in together and support other women

Throughout the years I have learned and benefited from many female managers, mentors, and coaches.

My hope is to see more women encourage other women to become leaders and support each other, especially in terms of helping younger colleagues to grow. When women celebrate each other’s accompaniment we’re all lifted up.

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Singaporean blockchain company Zilliqa has announced a strategic annual investment fund to invest up to US$5 million in 15 companies building on the its platform.

It will invest between US$50,000 and US$500,000 into promising companies in exchange for equity, tokens or a combination of both.

This investment will be funneled through ZILHive, the ecosystem growth arm of Zilliqa, through its ZILHive Incubator and ZILHive Ventures initiatives.

ZILHive Incubator is a 14-week programme that is targeted towards matching entrepreneurs with developers with industry experts to build blockchain solutions on the Zilliqa protocol.

Additionally, to make the programme more inclusive, the incubator will accommodate participants from both technical and non-technical participants who have little-to-no prior experience with blockchain.

Selected participants will develop their projects through mentorship sessions, masterclasses and workshops, out of which some teams will get the opportunity to showcase their projects to potential investors and industry partners at Zilliqa’s annual town hall event next year.

On the other hand, ZILHive Ventures will focus on investing in more mature projects that are built using the Zilliqa protocol.

Also Read: Zilliqa Capital debuts with the goal to invest in decentralised and fintech solutions in SEA, India

The fund aims to invest in companies annually from around the world. The best projects hoping to further scale and seeking growth capital for expansion will be referred to Zilliqa Capital, the recently-launched central business and investment hub aimed at investing in decentralised and fintech solutions to grow Southeast Asia’s fintech and emerging tech ecosystem.

According to the company, ZILHive participants will be assisted from start to finish, from idea generation and business matching, technical and non-technical education, mentorship, capital support, to counsel on taking-to-market strategies, partnerships, and business development.

“ZILHive has always had big ambitions: to drive more open and inclusive finance and commerce gateways for communities and companies worldwide, and power the Web 3.0 era. We have now doubled our investment into high-potential startups and initiatives in service this goal: guiding entrepreneurs from right from the drawing board, seeding and nurturing them to become not merely a blockchain success story, but provide truly useful applications for people,” said Han Wen Chua, SVP (Ecosystem Development) at Zilliqa.

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Image Credit: ZILHive

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Every tech startup follows a similar trajectory; they come up with a niche, they gather a small, yet effective, team, and they build their product to take to market. For us, the concept of charity fundraising was super simple, yet pretty much unheard of in Asia.

We noticed that the giving culture just wasn’t a part of everyday life in Asia like it was in Europe and the US. We didn’t have friends reaching out to us asking us to donate to their marathons, we didn’t add a recurring charity donation into our monthly personal budgets, and we didn’t feel CSR efforts running through the core of the brands that we worked with.

Therefore, we decided to build a platform that allowed people to help, or be helped, through online fundraising. Over ten years on, and with S$75 million (US$55 million) raised, we truly believe that for tech startups to stand out from the crowd and stand the test of time, they need to think beyond the problem they are trying to solve.

Positive experiences that create habits

Getting creative with your product offering is key, and it’s important to walk the steps of your customers’ journey to assess every pathway that can add more success or value. For example, at GIVE.asia, the basic concept is that people, brands, and charities can either ask for or donate money.
We challenged our team to make this concept less transactional, with the aim of providing a more enriching and fulfilling experience to our communities.

We found that adding simple elements to the product, like a personal “kindness level” and a “social impact” graph, gave donors instant gratification which encouraged them to come back again and again.

The best things in life are the easiest

It has been reported that the ground-breaking “one-click” was patented for US$2.4 billion and worked to challenge a 70 per cent cart abandonment. This tells us something very important about the mindset of the customer; they want the quickest and easiest solution possible.

Also Read: Malaysia-based Ethis Ventures launched charity crowdfunding platform GlobalSadaqah

Even adding an extra 30 seconds onto a transaction could have a significant impact on a brand, with users spending an average of 15 seconds on a website before deciding whether their attention has been grabbed.

Ask yourself how you can make your product as easy to use as possible. This is a long game, and our team works daily on how to optimise our site for this reason. Hacks have included offering multiple giving options, pre-filled forms, and simple and secure payment partners.

A picture speaks a thousand words, a story speaks a million

They say that storytelling is the new marketing, with consumers feeling that they need to understand how they are positively (or negatively) impacting the world through using a product. A recent study shows just how much CSR impacts the decisions of a consumer, for example, 88 per cent will be more loyal to a brand that supports social or environmental issues.

The question is: how does a brand successfully demonstrate the way it is involved with CSR initiatives and the impact that that involvement has? At GIVE.asia, it has become obvious for us that the most successful campaigns have more than just pictures. They have words, stories, updates, and videos to show the situation.

We have noticed that campaigns that include a video or full story write up are ten times more likely to do well. Equally, campaign owners who provide regular updates to their donors are four times more likely to experience repeat donors.

As the years go on, the significance of thinking beyond the problem is becoming more evident. Although at the time, it may be difficult to see the direct impact in numbers, or the ROI, gradually, this will change and the pay-off will be huge.

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Editor’s note: e27 aims to foster thought leadership by publishing contributions from the community. Become a thought leader in the community and share your opinions or ideas and earn a byline by submitting a post.

Join our e27 Telegram group, FB community or like the e27 Facebook page

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Sometimes we can be blind to the problems plaguing our business, and if you’re not careful, they can destroy your business.

We sit down to talk with Michelle Diamond about how to prevent that from happening!

We talk about:

• How to identify problems in your business
• How to align strategy with growth
• How to create a strong foundation to monitor internal and external changes in anticipation of problems arising
• How to escape the rat race of developing features and functions to stand out from your competition
• The most important thing you should do for yourself as a founder
• Why being authentic is the only way to succeed
• And much more!

If you don’t see the player above, click on the link below to listen directly!

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If you enjoy the podcast, would you please consider leaving a short review on Apple Podcasts/iTunes? It takes less than 60 seconds, and it really makes a difference in helping to convince hard-to-get guests. I also love reading the reviews!

For show notes and past guests, please visit our site.

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This article was first published on We Live To Build.

Image Credit: Michal Czyz on Unsplash

The post Identify and fix problems in your business with Michelle Diamond appeared first on e27.