Singapore-based wellness startup Evo has been making waves lately. In a statement, the company states that its flagship product Bounceback has grown 30 per cent month-on-month since its debut in 2021, serving up to 10,000 customers globally.
If you have never heard of the product, Bounceback is a pill that helps users combat the effect of hangovers such as headache, nausea, and redness. The Bounceback hangover supplement pill was made with 100 per cent natural ingredients and has twice the dose of Dihydromyricetin (DHM) found in regular anti-hangover pills to increase liver protection and boost the speed of alcohol metabolism. The concept of a hangover supplement pill itself may not be an entirely new innovation, but as a locally developed direct-to-consumer (DTC) brand, Evo aims to differentiate itself by offering the same solution for a lower price and easier accessibility.
Like many startups, the development of this company’s product was inspired by the founder’s own personal experience. Back when Evo Co-Founder and CEO Roy Ang was working with Grab, as someone who did not even drink alcohol, he did struggle with keeping up with entertaining customers and clients.
“My job requires me to deal with customers and partners three to four times weekly, and the next day, I just struggle to function in the daily grind. Fortunately, I have some Japanese friends who introduced me to Japanese hangover supplements. [After taking it] I did not have any headaches and can still function throughout the day,” Ang explains.
“[The product] is very big in Japan and Korea, but it is really hard to buy in other markets outside of it, and the prices tend to go up due to supply chain and logistics process … I thought, hey, there is actually a market for this hangover supplement. So we dive a bit deeper and find a lab in Singapore to formulate our ingredients. We started selling about a year ago, and it has been really good.”
In this interview with e27, we dig deeper into the company and how the co-founders’ past experience with the startup ecosystem helped them to kickstart the business.
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The key ingredients to a successful business
Evo was co-founded by Ang and COO Teoh Ming Hao. Both co-founders used to work at Southeast Asian tech giant Grab, with Ang having experience working at notable platforms such as Tech In Asia and e27. During his time at Grab, Ang was part of the founding team that established the Grab Financial Group, running both merchant solutions and GrabPay regionally.
When asked about his inspiration to get into entrepreneurship, Ang cited his father –who worked as a karang guni, collecting scraps and recyclables to support his family– as the person he looked up to the most. But he was also inspired by the fellow entrepreneurs he met throughout his career.
“During my time at Tech In Asia and e27, I interacted with many tech startup founders. Their stories, how they hustle, and the best practices they have done … it inevitably shaped what we do today when we are running out own startups. So, these two chapters were extremely important,” Ang begins.
“When I left to work with Grab, it gave a whole new perspective on how hypergrowth, venture-funded tech companies grow their business, particularly on how to grow from zero to unicorn. It gave the perspective that all of this can be a reality if you work hard and do it right,” he concludes.
He likens the process to enrolling on an MBA programme, where he learns first-hand how to validate a product’s problem statement, launch the product itself, to introduce it to a different market. All of this involved a wide array of skills that included brands and team building. “These are the lessons of the past 10 years that we have been lucky to acquire,” Ang stresses.
Like many other startups, Evo also had to go through various forms of its business before finding its current business model. The company actually started out as a live-streaming platform, but after two months of operations, the co-founders realised that the market size for such a business was just too small. So Ang and Teoh opted to pivot the business.
They timed the launch of Bounceback to be in line with the opening of borders as the pandemic situation improves in Southeast Asia. “We spent six months completing the R&D process and setting up the operations.”
Since the pivot, Evo says that it was able to grow by 700 per cent with the brands being featured on Changi Recommends and GrabMart.
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“Predominantly, we do digital marketing. Our entire revenue base right now are all 100 per cent online,” And explains. “We work with influencers to create thought-provoking content, then we AB-tested the content. We double down on the ones that work and cut off the ones that do not.”
After the hangover
In terms of funding, Evo recently completed a US$600,000 seed funding round led by East Ventures and is on track to rack in another eight-figure funding in their upcoming Series A round. Participating investors in the seed funding round include Carro CEO Aaron Tan, Prism+ Founder and Managing Director Jonathan Tan, and Shopback Co-Founder Joel Leong.
For the time being, Evo is focusing on the Southeast Asian and European markets. It is also working on its new products, which include hair loss supplement products.
“The aspiration is to build an all-encompassing health and wellness platform, but we are really, really early in the stage [of doing it]. From a product perspective, we look at some of the things that our existing customers are using. What can we build up from?” Ang says.
“This year, I think we are definitely looking into [selling our products] offline. We see ourselves as a consumer packaged goods company. So, you know, online as a channel has been extremely good for us, has been working well. But offline is something that we want to explore as well. We are AB testing in the Singapore market and looking into other markets as we go,” he closes.
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Image Credit: Evo
The article was first published on September 13, 2022.
The post Through their new company Evo, these ex-Grab executives want to help you deal with hangover better appeared first on e27.