Smart Companies are globally-connected and blockchain-compatible companies with their own legal identity

The focus of most companies in the blockchain space is to empower users and give them a level of autonomy that they can’t find in centralised systems (formal institutions such as banks, for example).

A key part of the move for empowerment is to reward users for their contributions within the blockchain system.

Every company has tried to implement a form of rewards system, and while these systems may differ, the goal is the same — to give users a reward that empowers them financially.

Credits given within the blockchain system hold monetary value – or a value that is essentially equivalent.

These rewards can be used within a particular blockchain-linked industry or they can be exchanged for money.

The idea is to give users a strong incentive to continue with blockchain technology.

There are a few obstacles, however, that need to be dealt with in order for users to fully benefit.

With the growing developments in the blockchain space, and with the decentralised nature of blockchain, it is important that businesses ensure that they are in compliance with Know Your Customer (KYC) and Anti Money Laundering (AML) regulations.

KYC is the process where a business verifies the identity of its clients and assesses potential risks of illegal intentions for the business relationship.

These are regulations that ensure that criminal activity is prevented, and transactions can occur securely and confidently.

In order for any financial institutions, regulated industries, merchants and/or service providers to run in any industry, they need to be in compliance with these regulations.

The same goes for many businesses in the blockchain space.

Companies are working their hardest to ensure that they follow these rules, but their implementation of these standards is very costly and has led to a major inconvenience for users, leading to a high drop-off rate in consumer onboarding.

In order for users of regulated blockchain applications to use a company’s services or purchase products, they typically will need to fulfil the KYC requirements.

For every application they make use of, they have to fill in the same details which very time consuming and cumbersome.

To deal with these gaps, one major field of interest among blockchain companies is identity verification, and this is one focus of platforms like Blockpass, which focuses on practical solutions in dealing with KYC.

A mobile approach to identity

The user-focused, user-controlled mobile identity application designed for smooth and immediate access to regulated services.

In its initial iteration, Blockpass is a KYC and AML application-as-a-service.

Its aim is to solve the current KYC problem that is present in the blockchain system and bring the blockchain industry into the mainstream with streamlined identity verification services.

Also read: Blockchain companies need to strengthen brand credibility for sake of ecosystem

Users can establish, verify, store and manage their identities while still maintaining full control over all personal data involved – something that plays well with current privacy regimes like the European GDPR and other regulations across Southeast Asia and beyond.

With an initial focus on human identity, such platforms provide a reliable and cost-effective KYC and AML services for regulated industries, merchants and service providers of all types. This means that the process of complying with these regulations will become easier for both users and companies.

Beyond transforming the way KYC and AML verification, a blockchain-based approach can also offer an opportunity for other companies to leverage the advantage of next-level technologies through API-based verification solutions.

It’s essentially a plug-and-play means to do KYC and verification without the need to build an entirely new solution from ground-up.

Mainstreaming the “Smart Company”

One concept being introduced into the mainstream is the idea of the “Smart Company”, which a startup called Korporatio is focusing on.

Simply put, Smart Companies are globally-connected and blockchain-compatible companies with their own legal identity.

Korporatio’s service creates legally recognised trading entities which can own assets and capital, and employ people – all through a blockchain approach.

Using smart contracts and blockchain technology, the platform is already changing the way that businesses start up and operate by removing the bureaucracy and red tape that often hampers progress.

The solution integrates with Blockpass’ KYC verification process, thus leading to a seamless and compliant user onboarding for new users.

With a tokenised approach, users also get benefits in the form of tokens as an incentive for signing up during a limited time.

Similar blockchain companies that are employing this KYC compliance solution include Infinito, GoSecurity and DSTOQ – all with focus on security, privacy, and ease of use.

Also read: Blockchain-based e-KYC platform claims the throne at Binar Academy and Tokopedia’s Hack of Thrones

The long-term goal: A seamless blockchain ecosystem

With all the new and different blockchain solutions being launched of late, the main goal is perhaps gearing toward a seamlessly functioning blockchain ecosystem that will allow more inclusiveness for users across the globe for individuals, businesses, or other organisations.

With secure verification, users will be able to participate in the ecosystem knowing that their information is secure, while being financially empowered at the same time.

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Make sure your customer service is on point!

With the advent of web-based advertising campaigns for internet companies, measuring customer acquisition metrics has become crucial for marketers everywhere.

Whether you are generating leads that bring actual revenue, or tracking consumer behaviour to improve the decision making process – analysing key parameters associated with customer acquisition can do wonders for your business

Understanding the customer acquisition cost (CAC) for your social media channels helps you assess your marketing spend, allocate a marketing budget, and determine the value proposition from conversion tracking. If you’re looking for effective ways to acquire customers online, try putting the following methods to test:

Superior social media customer service

Customers that have had an unsatisfactory experience with customer service are more inclined to take their business elsewhere. Therefore, investing in high-quality, solution-driven and attentive customer service is crucial for customer retention.

Responding to grievances and maintaining a direct line of communication with users also prevents negative publicity, especially in the digital age where word gets out fast and is never forgotten.

Once you are approached by a customer on any of your social media channels, acknowledge them, apologise for the inconvenience, and promise an estimated time-frame for resolution. Avoid being defensive and keep a professional tone even when you’re dealing with an impatient customer. Don’t try to shift the blame, and focus on escalating the issue as soon as possible.

As shown in the example below, the customer service of Victoria Bella Spa responds to its request on Facebook a customer seeking an appointment at the establishment.

Leverage the power Of LinkedIn

The majority of traffic on your platform consists of anonymous users, unless they’re specifically logging in, or identifying themselves in some form while browsing. Understanding user behaviour and creating buyer personas can be a game changer.

If you have at least the basic information about the person visiting your platform, and what they came looking for. With Leadfeeder, you can categorize your visitors according to their company’s IP addresses, by sifting through their browsing logs to get a valuable insight into what kind of websites, and portals each visitor is interested in.

What’s more? The app easily synchronises with your LinkedIn profile, to show you a list of closest connections at visiting companies, and also push all this data to your Customer Relation Management (CRM). Utilize the knowledge you obtain from Leadfeeder as a starting point for personalized, proactive engagement with new and existing customers.

Learn more about your customers

Nobody wants their identity to be reduced to a faceless individual, with an email address that invoices get sent to –  especially not the customers you do intend to do long-term business with. To understand the psyche of an average customer, you need to know more about them as a people.

This helps you identify their pain points, anticipate their needs, fill the gaps in your CRM strategy and offer customized solutions to their problems.For a quick example, connect Salesforce with Clearbit, a nifty profile enrichment tool that will scour through all possible data sources, including social media, to create a detailed profile of every customer.

Also Read: 3 trends that will drive Vietnam’s e-commerce sector in 2019

These insights can come in handy for your team for when they need personalized sales pitches that directly appeal to the customer’s interest.

Experiment With The Most Popular Promotional Tactics

Although persuasive copy and creative call-to-actions (CTA) are crucial for garnering potential customers,  you can always rely on a few tried and tested methods to promote your brand on various social media channels like LinkedIn, Pinterest, Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.

Here are a few excellent ways that are known to work for any brand, product or service:-

Conduct engaging polls: Get instant engagement from asking people to vote on a relatively easy, but interesting questions.

Host a contest or giveaway: With an enormous virality potential, contests are a great way to attract new customers, engage with the existing ones, and increasing your post reach or followers. To get more attention to your contest, you can also create a separate tab on your page that either redirects to your website, or takes you to the contest page on Facebook itself.

For example, Eggo, a popular brand of frozen waffles in the United States, created a separate ‘Recipe Contest’ tab to their page, and featured the same under ‘Apps’.

Ask for customer input on upcoming features and services: A successful business takes  customer feedback into account while pushing out new updates, features, products and services.  Use your social media channels to improve your digital marketing strategy, by asking your customers directly about suggestions!

Lions Club International, a non-political service organization from Illinois posted a simple text update, encouraging users to making suggestions on improving club meetings.

Use hashtagsCreate a company hashtag and encourage your followers to use it. You can also capitalize on the trending hashtags in your posts to piggyback your way into ‘popular’ tweets.

KitKat created the #HaveAbreak hashtag for their campaign, urging users to take to time out from their day to enjoy a KitKat.

Also Read: Go-Jek funding round aims for US$3 billion

Post motivational images, quotes and videos: Emotionally connect with your users, by sharing an inspiring story or a few words of wisdom from the experts.

In the above example, a Facebook user puts up a motivational quote image to increase engagement.

Recognizing your most engaging users:Create a quick list of users that frequent your page more often than the others, and reward them with a small feature in a post, or grant them access to exclusive events, contests, promotions, and services.

ModCloth, an American online retailer for women’s clothing, explains what features their ‘superfans’ will get access to.

Employ paid marketing: With the new Facebook algorithm, organic reach seems to be on a decline, and you should consider investing in paid promotions on social media. Experiment with A/B split testing to determine what works the best with your target audience, and the performance of your ads.

In the above example , Jasper’s Market, an ultra-premium prepared food market uses a carousel-type Facebook ad to promote their products.

Post incentives, deals, and discounts:Nothing attracts potential customers more than a post about a well-timed sale, discount, deal, or incentive, containing appropriate call-to-action (CTA) and trackable links.

As shown above, Amazon announces a Bonus Deal with an appropriate call-to-action to drive traffic to their website.

Post more native videos:Most platforms are now giving preference to natively uploaded videos over other types of content, so hop on the video marketing trend. Familiarize yourself with the best practices, concepts, and formats to post interactive, engaging videos.

Let customers spread the word about your brand

Approximately 39 per cent of adults have admitted to posting on social media about their experience with a product, service or a brand.

Regardless of you tapping into these conversations, it’s undeniable that they’re happening and you are missing an opportunity to tap into an important emotional trigger.Use Mention to get notified every time your business is mentioned across the internet. Share customer testimonials and experiences, and let the word-of-mouth do the marketing for you.

The simple approach to keeping your customer acquisition is understanding that customer loyalty can always be improved upon by implementing an efficient CRM, marketing campaigns can be optimized to succeed by keeping tabs on what your audience responds to , and the user value can be enhanced by upgrading your product or service to make it more appealing to your customers.

Break out a spreadsheet and closely document your customer acquisition budget (pay-per-click), customer lifetime value, and direct sales generated from your efforts for each channel.

For a dramatic increase in revenue, you should aspire to a social media strategy that directly contribute to conversions by bringing in new customers, and produces interesting content to engage the existing users.

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Startups that launch products hurt the reputation of crypto, so it is important to point out the companies that are doing right by their investors</h3

Cryptocurrency has had a rollercoaster year and in hindsight we are starting to realise the hype may have been more than a little premature.

A study commissioned by Invest in Blockchain found that only 36 of the top 100 digital currencies by market capitalisation had a working product.

To look at it from an even scarier lens: 64 per cent of these projects are still knee-deep in product development – some of them may even have nothing more available to the public than a white paper and a community chat.

While the definition of what constitutes a working product is up for debate – the researchers used public availability, the release of a mainnet and consumer or enterprise usage as their criteria – there is no arguing that there is a serious issue afoot here.

These crypto projects are breaking a cardinal rule in the tech world: They’ve put marketing before product development, sometimes even to its exclusion.

Also Read: 3 trends that will drive Vietnam’s e-commerce sector in 2019

The focus on marketing would not be so problematic if the general public tended to compartmentalise crypto projects one-by-one, but they do not. A few bad actors will paint a pattern in their eyes: These initiatives are all hype, or even worse, they are all scams.

In short time, you might see a backlash against truly innovative cryptocurrencies or crypto companies, similar to how some skeptics doubted firms like Amazon or PayPal in the wake of the dot-com bubble.

The problem is rooted in the general public as much as it is in the crypto projects with no working product. Rather than celebrate any crypto project with a unique idea, we need to exercise greater discretion in choosing which initiatives, organizations, and firms to give our attention to.

We should focus on ventures that have a working product, as it’s their solutions that will improve the lives of users, and in the aggregate, build credibility and galvanize support for an industry in dire need of it.

Luckily, Asia Pacific is home to some of the most notable cryptocurrency companies with working products. Here are three of the very best, each working to cut through marketing speak with solutions that help enterprises or consumers.

QTUM

QTUM, based out of Singapore, was one of the few companies in Asia that made Invest in Blockchain’s list of working products. It is a smart contracts platform and value transfer protocol that takes elements from both Bitcoin and Ethereum. Though its price has fallen as of late, many enterprises and organizations are already building projects atop QTUM, in fields as diverse as health care, content creation, and online search.

Most impressively, some developers are using QTUM to build niche applications far from the usual technology subsectors. One example is Halal Chain.

Halal certification is the process of certifying food, medicine, and cosmetics as meeting certain standards established by the Islamic Council. Unfortunately, many companies try to game the system, as a bid to attract the Muslim market but cut costs on the actual work it takes to produce Halal goods.

Halal Chain will better regulate the Halal certification system by tracing the movement of goods at every stage of the chain – raw material supply, inspection and quarantine, and sales – through QTUM-enabled smart contracts. There are many other noteworthy projects being built through QTUM, which just goes to show its effectiveness as a platform: It is enabling others to succeed in ways they couldn’t before.

Pundi X

Pundi X was another company in Asia that met Invest in Blockchain’s criteria for a working product.

The term may even be an understatement for Pundi X, as the Indonesian company is in the midst of a global roll-out of their 100,000 Pundi XPOS devices, deploying so far in Singapore, Korea, Indonesia, Brazil, Switzerland, United Kingdom, and many other markets. These XPOS devices enable consumers to make in-store transactions using cryptocurrency via their Pundi XPASS card.

In July, the Pundi XPOS were launched at the eateries of the FAMA Group in Hong Kong, including Locofama, Sohofama, SUPAFOOD and the Hive Cafe. An even more impressive deployment came just last year at Ultra Taiwan 2018. In what would be a rain-soaked festival, close to 30,000 attendees would pay for their food, drinks, and merchandise using Ultra Coin – the festival’s official digital currency – at the XPOS terminals.

The two partners billed the event as the world’s first blockchain-powered music festival, but the significance of its success is arguably even greater: It showed that handling thousands of crypto transactions from consumers in a real-world setting was not only feasible but practical. Pundi X, in other words, is making crypto usage as mainstream as well, music festivals and hip eateries.

Bitmain

Bitmain was not on Invest in Blockchain’s working products list because it is not based on a cryptocurrency – the company manufactures miners – but it is just as important to highlight here because the wider ecosystem is as full of marketing hype as the cryptocurrency projects themselves.

Just think about how many miners, hard wallets, automated teller machines, and other solutions have failed to materialise after an avalanche of early hype.

Bitmain represents a welcome contrast. Headquartered out of China, Bitmain has created a lineup of powerful Bitcoin and Litecoin miners and has since diversified into managing the largest mining pools in the world and even AI chips.

As of last month, Bitmain even completed its pre-IPO registration in a bid to attract capital to accelerate production of its hardware, and cement its market leadership in crypto technology.

Also Read: Oriente partners with Indonesia’s conglomerate Sinar Mas to launch lending platform

This list is by no means exhaustive. There are plenty of crypto projects and companies in Asia that are doing great work.

This is merely a call to focus on those who are already walking the walk (i.e. helping consumers or enterprises with their products) and not just talking the talk (i.e. marketing what they will one day do).

Exercising greater discipline in who we chose to celebrate will no doubt benefit the industry as a whole, attracting supporters, winning over skeptics, and ultimately legitimizing cryptocurrency as a technology here to stay.
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The Hong Kong-based financial service startup Oriente joins Sinar Mas to launch lending platform Finmas, that would be the third fintech product from the conglomerate

Sinar Mas, a conglomerate from Indonesia, banded together with Oriente, a Hong Kong-based financial service startup to launch Finmas. Finmas would be the third financial product by the conglomerate and will serve as an on-demand lending platform aimed at millions of underserved consumers and MSMEs across Indonesia, which currently accounts for 66 per cent of 260 millions Indonesians.

Also Read: Go-Jek funding round aims for US$3 billion

Finmas is a mobile app that seeks to support financial literacy and inclusion in the country, simultaneously support Otoritas Jasa Keuangan (OJK), the Financial Services Authority in Indonesia. It is specifically designed to give access to people with no traditional banking and formal financial services (including bank accounts, credit rating, or credit) history using mobile technology.

It allows the underserved people to have:

• multiple purpose-based financing options
• paperless, collateral-free and available 24×7 service via their own mobile device
• low-interest rates with no hidden fees
• real-time credit-scoring
• choice of the repayment schedule
• funding in as little as 24 hours

“Finmas aims to help millions of Indonesians unlock their financial potential through #SahabatFinansial practices that are founded on core principles of responsibility, security, convenience, and affordability,” said Peter Lydian, President Director of Finmas said, Mr. Hendrikus Passagi, Director Regulation, Licensing and Supervision Fintech of the Financial Services Authority (OJK).

Finmas’ features enable consumers to apply for a cash loan whenever they need access to credit for tuition fees, household expenses, specific consumer goods, emergencies, or to start and grow their small businesses via the app. Consumers are given full control to keep track of their loan application status and repayment schedule.

Also Read: Ofo operating license suspended in Singapore

Gandi Sulistiyanto, Managing Director of Sinar Mas also stated that Finmas will bridge to not only support financial services but also to equip the users with understanding so they can have comfort and privacy protection.
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Image Credit: Finmas

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The frowned upon policy includes a minimum of IDR 1 trillion (US$71.17 million) as a paid-up capital for a new trader offering future contracts for crypto assets

Cryptocurrency has been traded in Indonesia for a while now, but just recently got regulated by Indonesia’s Commodity Futures Trading Regulatory Agency, known locally as Bappebti. It just authorised digital currencies as a trading commodity, setting an IDR 1 trillion (US$71.17 million) as the minimum paid-up capital for a new trader offering future contracts for crypto assets.

The authorisation is under regulation No.5/2019, as told by KrAsia. Since October last year, the capital of Indonesia Jakarta has gone ahead and allowed the trading to protect customers from crypto fluctuations.

Also Read: 5 Indonesian state-owned enterprises merge mobile payment services

The regulation focusses on technical provisions for the implementation of cryptocurrency exchanges, which effectively treats currencies like bitcoin as commodities to be traded legally.

“We want to give protection to people who want to invest in crypto assets so that they aren’t cheated by fraudulent sellers,” said Head of Bappepti, Indrasari Wisnu Wardhana.

Cryptocurrency exchanges have been around since 2014 amid the legality uncertainty, inflamed further by Indonesia’s Central Bank banning it as a payment option.

One of the requirements for trading cryptocurrency in the country is that the trader must pass a risk assessment that rules out that they’re being misused in money laundering schemes or the funding of terrorism. Other requirements include the client support division that the traders must possess, the employment of at least one certified security practitioner, five-years-old of transaction data, and have a server inside the country.

Despite addressing the issues in the country, this regulation has been frowned upon, especially in the country’s crypto community. Institute for Development of Economics and Finance (INDEF), for example, has an opinion that this regulation came “a bit too late”, as told by INDEF economist Bhima Yudhistira Adhinegara.

“Bitcoin prices in the last two years have fallen by 81% from US$ 18,269 at the end of 2017 to US$ 3,464 per coin in February 2019. The legal uncertainty surrounding bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies in Indonesia has caused many to miss out on opportunities during the trading heydays,” said Adhinegara regarding the late policy.

More complaints from the traders also highlight the new rules that requires a high minimum capital for traders. Trading is indeed allowed, but the payment option ban from the central bank is yet to be lifted.

“Regulation is needed to support a sector, help the economy and protect people “but it should not kill an industry,” Oscar Darmawan, Chief Executive of digital asset trader Indodax, or used to be known as bitcoin.co.id, said to Channel Asia Singapore.

Darmawan felt that the amount of minimum capital level is much higher than the IDR 2.5 billion minimum paid-up capital for a futures broker of other commodities.

Also Read: Walking the walk: Three Asian crypto companies gaining real-world traction

Currently, it’s believed that there is no recorded data on the size of Indonesia’s crypto-currency market. However, people in the industry are positive that the number of investors has nearly matched that of the country’s main stock market.
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Industry experts are doubtful the new cartel can compete with Go-Jek or Ovo

In a sign of just how important Go-Jek and Ovo have become in Indonesia, five of the largest Indonesian state owned enterprises are merging their mobile payment services to compete with the two tech companies, according to Nikkei Asian Review.

The companies are in the banking and communications sector and the new mobile payments service will be called LinkAja. It is expected to launch in March.

The SOEs involved are as follows:

• Telekomunikasi Indonesia (Telekom)
• Bank Mandiri
• Bank Rakyat Indonesia
• Bank Negara Indonesia
• Bank Tabungan Negara

The state-owned oil company Pertamina is expected to join the group. The future of LinkAja will probably include a move beyond just payments and into other financial services.

LinkAja will be run by Fintek Karya Nusantara, a subsidiary company of Telekom. Telekom has a 25 per cent stake in the new venture while three banks (Bank Mandir, Bank Rakyat Indonesia, Bank Negara Indonesia) will hold 20 per cent. Bank Tabungan Negara will have 7 per cent of LinkAja.

There is also talks to onboard Alipay and WeChat Pay onto the service.

As e27 reported in our ecosystem report, 2018 was the year Indonesians began to adopt digital payments (driven by Go-Jek/Ovo and the government’s move to integrate digital options into highway toll payment infrastructure).

These state-owned enterprises seem to recognise the importance of having a digital solution while recognising they have a long way to go to catch up with Go-Jek and Ovo. They seem to have decided that the only way to compete was to work together.

Because Go-Jek is so widely used as a do-everything app, its payment infrastructure was able to leverage the network affect and grow into one of the most popular mobile payment options in the country.

Ovo started as a mobile payments company and partnerships with the likes of Tokopedia have helped it grow into the next potential Indonesian unicorn. It received major investment from the Indonesian conglomerate Lippo Group and is the main payment service for Grab.

Industry experts cited by Nikkei Asian Review were skeptical that LinkAja could compete with GoJek or Ovo.

Digital wallets are seen as important by the Indonesian government, with Nikkei Asian Review citing a statistic that 50 per cent of people over the age of 15 do not have a bank account.

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Photo by Bernard Hermant on Unsplash

 

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You can also get predictions related to marriage, love life, career, or health over phone calls and chats via AstroTalk.in

He never believed in astrology, and made fun of people who followed what he termed a “pseudo science”. To him, astrology was not something a learnt and educated person would follow.

However, his destiny was already written when he was born. And this destiny brought this entrepreneur to the very pseudo science that he once rejected with derision.

Puneet Gupta’s story is a perfect example of how destiny plays a big role in one’s life, and how human beings, at times, end up doing things they never wanted or expected to do.

“I was working for investment bank BNP Paribas in India back in 2015. I was not satisfied with the corporate life and always wanted to start a company on my own. But my earlier experiences as a founder deterred me from launching another one,” he tells me.

Willy-nilly, Gupta once again decided to take the plunge.

The colleague’s prediction

“When I was typing my resignation letter, a colleague of mine came over to my desk. She told me ‘You look lost. Are you okay. Do you need any help’. I showed the resignation letter and also shared with her my past struggles as a startup founder. After listening to my story, she asked me to share my birth details and that she would tell me what I should do next. She had a fair knowledge of astrology,” Gupta says.

“But I categorically told her I did not believe in astrology. But when she started sharing some of the experiences that I had had in the past, I had no option but to believe her. It was as if she knew my past life well enough. I was still unconvinced. But she persuaded me to go ahead with the decision to quit BNP Paribas and pursue my entrepreneurial dreams,” he reveals.

She predicted then that the coming two years looked very promising for Gupta’s startup. But the business would  still face some challenges in the initial months. She also prophesied that his co-founder might leave him after two years and then the business would be pivoted. Once pivoted, it would flourish. The colleague also asked him to stay in the IT domain and explained to him how ‘Saturn’ and ‘Rahu’ in his birth chart would support IT.

As she advised, Gupta started an IT services startup, called CodeYeti, in April 2015. The business grew fast and bagged around 15-20 clients, including big ones like Yamaha. The startup also clocked a revenue of US$500,000 in the first year.

Also Read: Will US President Donald Trump get impeached anytime soon? This startup could help you predict it

“After one and half years, my co-founder (who was my school mate) came to me and said he was not happy with the services business and that he wanted to launch products. I agreed with him, and we together started investing a lot of our time researching, and then launched a few new products. But none of these products saw the light of the day. The products were shut down, and I decided to focus on the the services business again,” Gupta reveals.

“True to the prediction of my former colleague, my co-founder resigned exactly after two years of starting our business. This is when I realised that there is something about astrology that is addictive. It doesn’t matter whether you have faith in it or not, but once someone starts telling you about your future, it is very fascinating and you want to know a lot more,” he goes on.

After his co-founder’s departure, Gupta dialled his the former astrologer colleague to apprise her of the events occurred in his life, and told her that all her predictions came true. She smiled at him and asked if he wanted to check his birth chart once again to know what future holds for him.

“I paused for a moment. And then I proposed an idea: how about I start a product in the field of astrology and I become your first customer?’,” Gupta adds as he narrates the story. “This was the beginning of AstroTalk.in.”

The beginning

Launched in October 2017, Noida (near Delhi)-based AstroTalk is an online astrology predictions destination. One can talk to an astrologer over phone, or over chats, and get answers to all his/her worries by seeing the future life through ‘Astrology Kundli Predictions’ from the best astrologers in India. One can get predictions related to marriage, love life, career or health over phone calls, chats, queries or reports.

AtroTalk targets people in the age bracket of 23 to 25 as of now. According to Gupta, the company receives enquiries not just from different parts of India, but the US, Canada, the UK, Singapore and Dubai as well.

“We offer an e-wallet for customers. They can recharge it and then speak to an astrologer. We have more than 125 astrologers on our panel,” Gupta adds. “We charge on the basis of the duration of the session. Customers have an option to end the session at any time or else it ends automatically when they run out of balance.”

The company banks on multiple monetisation models. In addition to charging a customer for every session, AstroTalk also allows users to get a detailed report from the astrologer for a charge. Additionally, users can get online puja (offering) performed, or buy gemstone, Rudraksha, Yantra etc.

Gupta reveals that since inception, AstroTalk has had many interesting customer stories. “We had a customer in India, who asked us when can he change his job. Our astrologer told him that he will be working on a foreign land after three months and will be earning quite well. But he was unconvinced, since he had no contacts outside India and has not applied in a foreign company,” Gupta reveals.

Also Read: This Bangalore-based startup has built an on-demand marketplace for spiritual gurus

“So, he left a very bad review of the astrologer and even complained to our support team. We then gave him a complimentary second opinion from another astrologer, who also predicted on the same lines. He got frustrated and left a ‘one star’ review on the app and said we are fake. We were disappointed to lose a customer. But after four months, he updated his review and told us that he was messaging from the UAE. He also sent a personal gift to the astrologer. Since then he is our regular customer,” Gupta smiles.

Well, Can AstroTalk also predict whether an entrepreneur/startup would be successful or not? And what do astrologers say about the success chances of AstroTalk?

“That’s an interesting question. When we started AstroTalk, we were told that the period till October 2018 would be tough. As he predicted, we went through a lot of ups and downs till July 2018 and our numbers were stagnant. However, in August 2018 (instead of Oct 2018), we achieved the product market fit and started scaling up. We have been growing 25 per cent month-on-month since then. As per Astrologer, AstroTalk would see an exponential growth when Ketu Antardasha starts in Rahu Dasha after April 2019. Rahu supports online business and Ketu supports spirituality,” he concluded.

(Disclaimer: Neither e27 nor this writer doesn’t believe in/promote astrology).

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As a member of the society, tech companies have the right — and obligation— to fight for justice

There are many reasons to be disappointed at the world these days. The latest was when, on Wednesday February 13, Instagram deleted a comic strip about daily struggle of being an Indonesian gay Muslim man.

The ban was confirmed by Indonesian minister of communications and informatics Rudiantara, following pressure from society to ban the comic strip’s account. The account, which boasts 6,000 followers, had been condemned by internet users as blasphemous and immoral for its depiction on the internal conflicts that a Muslim gay man faces on daily basis.

If you recall, this is not exactly the first time a tech giant succumbing to the pressure of homophobic groups in Indonesia. As recently as 2018, Google succumbed to the ministry’s request to remove several LGBT apps — mostly social networking or dating apps — from Play Store.

Also, do not forget that time when Go-Jek had to sanction its executive for posting a compliment on the company’s inclusive policies on his personal Facebook. While the executive was sanctioned for “violating the company’s employee social media guideline”, it is hard to separate the sanction from the public pressure that had called upon Go-Jek users to uninstall the app for supporting LGBT rights.

These incidents happened at least three times in the Indonesian market and I have reasons to believe that more is going to come as the country becomes more religiously conservative.

It is about time for us to beg the question: How long can tech companies succumb to the homophobic, human rights-violating demand of its public?

Also Read: Riding the irony: Can Indonesian GO-JEK afford supporting LGBTQ rights in a country that condemns it?

The first response to this question would be: Well, when running their operations in a country, businesses are obliged to abide to the positive law of said country. If Indonesia said you should pay tax, then you pay tax. If Indonesia said you should not have pornographic content on your platform, then you should not, unless you are willing to risk being banned.

But guess what? Despite some group’s effort to have them banned, being a homosexual is not illegal in Indonesia.

So if a tech company decided to follow through demands from groups or a ministry to ban LGBT content on its platform, they are not abiding the law, they are succumbing to pressure from hardline groups.

Also Read: World’s largest dating app for gays sets up shop in Taiwan

Here is the thing: On the other hand, we also have to understand that businesses can not afford to lose their customers. They need to maintain a certain a public image and a good reputation equals money.

However, innovation is meant to be for the betterment of society.

And we believe that in the case of tech companies, their innovation should not be limited to to their scope of work, or the services and products that they provide. It also lies in the value that they are propagating.

This is why, when tech giants such as Google make a mistake in the way they are handling sexual harassment cases, its employees did not just sit down and accept. They walked out; they called for changes.

As long as you are a member of the society, you are entitled — no, obliged — to fight for justice.

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Image Credit: Mercedes Mehling on Unsplash

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SendFriend attracted Ripple, Barclays, and some other investors with its US-Philippines remittance service

Blockchain-based remittance startup that helps people in US to send money to the Philippines SendFriend has announced funding from Ripple, Barclays, MIT Media Lab, the Mastercard Foundation, Techstars, Mahindra Finance, 2020 Ventures, and 8 Decimal Capital. All investors banded together in raising a total capital of US$1.7 million for the company, as reported by The News Asia.

Also Read: Cambodia catches up with launching of startup professional service alliance

The company will use the fund to finance its mission, which is to enable Overseas Filipino Workers (OFWs) to securely transfer USD to PHP at the lowest rate available. SendFriend also seeks to become the only option to do so, from US to the Philippines and vice versa with 65 per cent lower fees.

The news came just after the integration with Ripple’s xRapid solution for SendFriend’s users to have a more efficient cross-border payment in November 2018.

“With the integration, XRP is used as a liquidity vehicle for cross-border payments, enabling SendFriend’s users to circumvent the corresponding banking system and convert USD to XRP to PHP in a matter of seconds,” said representative from SendFriend to David Lighton, SendFriend co-founder and Chief Executive Officer further added the plan with the funding.

Also Read: GOJEK names Lien Choong Luen as GM for Singapore operations

“This investment will allow us to build out our team, focus on community engagement, and marketing efforts. Next, we’re planning to launch in New Jersey and becoming available in other states in US,” said Lighton.
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Image Credit: SendFriend

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This brings to a close OYO’s US$1B financing round led by SoftBank Vision Fund, which has pumped US$800M into the company

OYO gets US$100M from China’s Didi Chuxing [The Economic Times]

Chinese ride-hailing giant Didi Chuxing has invested US$100 million in Southeast Asia’s budget hotel aggregator chain OYO. The investment, which continues to value Oyo at about US$5 billion, has been made from Didi-controlled entity Star Virtue Investment, people aware of developments told ET.

This brings to a close OYO’s US$1 billion financing round led by existing backer SoftBank Vision Fund, which has pumped US$800 million into the company.

The Didi investment comes a little over two months after Singapore-headquartered transportation major Grab infused the same amount in the Gurgaon-based startup.

Circles.Life to expand to Taiwan, Australia this year after securing Sequoia investment [Channel News Asia]

Mobile virtual network operator, Circles.Life, on Thursday announced it will be expanding its presence from beyond Singapore’s shores, with plans to enter Taiwan and Australia this year.

Its regional expansion plans come after it closed a Series C funding round led by Sequoia India, the company said in a press release. No details on the size of investment that was raised were disclosed.

CEO Rameez Ansar told Channel NewsAsia in an interview before the announcement that this is one of the few times Sequoia is investing in a telco, which is testament to what the company is trying to achieve – creating a telco experience on top of the infrastructure akin to what Uber and Grab did to disrupt the taxi industry.

Google, Apple face calls to pull Saudi app allowing men to monitor wives [Reuters]

A Saudi Arabian government app that allows men in the country to monitor and control their female relatives’ travel at the click of a button should be removed from Google and Apple’s online stores, a US politician and activists said on Wednesday.

Human rights campaigners argued the tech giants are enabling abuses against women and girls in the ultra-conservative kingdom by hosting the app.

The free Absher app, created by the Saudi interior ministry, allows men to update or withdraw permissions for their wives and female relatives to travel internationally and get SMS updates if their passports are used, said human rights researchers.

Indonesia’s trader platform Stockbit acquires mutual fund app Bibit [DealStreetAsia]

Indonesia-based Stockbit, a social network for stock traders, has acquired local investment startup Bibit for an undisclosed fee to simplify investment process for first-time traders. Prior to the acquisition, which took place late last year, Bibit was an OJK-licensed tech-based mutual fund seller.

Following the deal, Stockbit has relaunched Bibit as a robo-advisory platform to simplify conventional time-tested investment products to the Indonesian public.

“(Bibit will be) a one-click solution to invest in an optimal portfolio that is personalized towards your age and risk profile,” Stockbit CEO Wellson Lo told DealStreetAsia.

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