6 Key Takeaways from Startup Asia 2013

I visited the Startup Asia 2013 event (organised by TechInAsia) recently in Singapore, which ran from the evening of 3 April (pre-event) to the night of 5 April (after-event dinner). Chock-full of market data from the neighbouring markets, marketplace of big ideas from startups, valuable lessons and advice from successful entrepreneurs, luminary quips (albeit at times with wry humour), it was a jam-packed startup event spread over 3 storeys of panel discussions, interviews, demo booths, startup pitches and countless networking opportunities. Bringing together VCs, incubators, social media marketeers, entrepreneurs, startups and more from all over the region in Southeast Asia and beyond, while everyone recognised that Southeast Asia is evolving to be a hotbed for mobile internet innovation, this wave is not coming without its hosts of challenges like payment, logistics, ecosystem support.

Here are the 6 key takeaways I put together from my experiences in the Startup Asia event 2013.

1. Develop Vertical Communities to build Commerce opportunities

• Lots of Buttons from Hong Kong, won the $10,000 first prize during the startup pitch competition at the Startup Asia event - "Lots of Butttons is a Hong Kong ecommerce that sells craft materials at 50% of retail price. #startupAsia via @xescx"
• Puddding which through its relevant social discovery platform for ladies looking to buy jeans online through recommendations from other similar sized ladies, offers sizing insurance.
• Windphony is a global self-publishing platform which allows composers, of varying professional levels to submit and market their own music (scores) works.
• The trend in the growing number of vertical communities into commerce has been highlighted during the SparxUp Indonesia 2012 event.

2. Enriching Your Communication Experience

• It is little wonder that with social being an essential layer to bring about engagement, community and commerce, the Social Messaging market is hotting up globally and especially now in Southeast Asia.
• In the business to business (B2B) space, Chatwork seeks to simplify business communications amongst employees.
• In the business to consumer (B2C) space - Hoozin tries to bring the real-world experience in face to face group chat conversations into its "round-table user interface".
• Watch out for the evolution of the Social Messaging market in 2013. 

3. Consolidating and Sharing Media Quickly

• Caught in today's hyper-connected mobile world, consumers are constantly being inundated with an avalanche of media, information and tasks to be completed. Startups are constantly sprouting up with solutions to address these perennial pains.
• In the Business to Business or B2B space, mmixr looks to offer professionals a cloud-based solution to better manage, edit and share their rich media presentation materials.
• In the Business to Consumer or B2C space, yet another photo app, Seconds comes forth with a pitch on their 1-2-3 quick to shoot and share to private albums, whilst PixBento is differentiating with their offer to bridge photo sharing amongst buddies by allowing photos to be pooled and shared across the smartphones and PCs of specific buddies.

4. B2B and B2C Loyalty is trending

• From 2012 and into 2013, an increasing number of business to consumer (B2C) loyalty program players who cater to retailer consumer loyalty benefits, and business to employee (B2E) loyalty program players who cater to corporate staff benefits are entering and developing these markets in Southeast Asia.
• Retailers and enterprises alike have been or will be looking into the trend of loyalty programs for their customers (business to consumer, B2C) or for their employees (business to employee or B2E).
• Some examples of B2C loyalty program players include Malaysia based Pofers.com and Gimmie.
• Examples of B2E loyalty program players include Singapore-based Pyrks.com and Malaysia-based PerkPool. And by the way, there is another player in Singapore, Patontheback.org which was not at the event.

5. Utility tools over Cloud as a service to drive SME productivity

• In view of the service labour crunch in Singapore, Kwix is looking to help restaurants relieve their labour shortage in waiting staff by allowing customers to order from their smartphones at their tables, instead of having to wait for the restaurant staff to attend to them.
• Ticktok looks at alleviating the frustrations of consumers who are waiting in line for their table by getting real-time notifications to them when their tables are ready. Restaurant owners are able to better manage their yield in seat allocation and not lose frustrated customers.

6. "Keep the fire in your belly"

• With every new business that one ventures into, there will never be any certainty in the product development, take up and performance. The important thing is that entrepreneurs need to stay bright-eyed in their outlook.
• Chua Kee Lock, Group President and CEO of Vertex Venture Holdings, offered the following golden gems:
• "Are you trying to win, or not to lose?"
• "An entrepreneur needs to be arrogant, but also willing to listen."
• Last but not least, Loo Cheng Chuan from Local L!fe, SingTel Digital Life Group rounded up his presentation about the 9 shocking truths about Silicon Valley with the following quip "Keep the fire in your belly".

Whilst the Startup Asia 2013 event in Singapore was a great platform and meeting of minds for the startup community in the region and beyond, it would only serve as a precursor for more exciting things to come for the business ideas and performances of many of the bright minds I have had seen and had conversations with.

In closing, to all startups and entrepreneurs out there, Keep on going ... Don't lost hope. You never know what tomorrow will bring.

Reading references:

1. Tech and cultural trends from Vietnam, Thailand and Indonesia
2. Innovation from the East: takeaways from Startup Asia 2013
3. #startupasia Twitter conversations (chockful of information here! 
4. Startup Management: Tips for Prioritizing and Scaling (with Chua Kee Lock)
5. 9 shocking truths about Silicon Valley - Lessons from 100 Startup Founders
6. Newly added, Startup Asia 2013 as an infographic

3 Phase Strategy in Digital Commerce

It's been quite some time since my last post on "5 Pillars in the Internet Content Business", where I was discussing the areas to look at from content to advertising, access/browsing, payment, and fulfillment/monitoring. I have been busy but I am back with a couple of ideas brewing in my head.

3 Phase Strategy in Digital Commerce from Nelson Wee

Lately, I have been deliberating on what are the phases in which the various players in the markets are putting into play as they go-to-market in digital commerce. I came up with the following 3 phases which I would like to share and discuss with you - all comments most welcome to refine this further :-)

(1) Apps (& Content)

• Today we are seeing apps and content ecosystems and symbiotic cross-platform partnerships being put together to address the needs, routines and opportunities of the consumers' Digital Life.
• The battle of the ecosystems is growing more rampant - Apple, Google are leading but Amazon, Microsoft are coming up with wave after wave of new hardware, content business models design and collaborations.
• Why? Cos I figure Apps (& Content) provide excellent outposts in the marketplace for the businesses, in listening and understanding the consumers on how they engage with the apps and contents on their screens - smartphones, tablets, PCs or even your humble feature phones.
• Content consumption is going mobile and across different screens and businesses need to experiment and learn from the changing habits of the on-the-go consumers.

(2) Social

• Today, we are also witness to the battle of the social networks - Facebook, Twitter, and recently and Google+ giving the former 2 a good run.
• Consumer fatigue in the above "traditional" social networks amongst especially the millennials are leading to exits from social networks like Facebook to micro-blogs like Tumblr and more rapid and engaging conversations through instant messaging.
• And so, instant messaging is also turning social.  And there are many players in the market - the popular WhatsApp, Naver Line, KakaoTalk, SK planet TicToc fast mobile messenger and more.
• Tremendous opportunities abound to engage communities from apps drawn to the social messaging platforms, with a relevant content marketing calendar.

(3) Commerce

• What we have been hearing like a broken record these days "Commerce is getting social"
• Indeed by understanding the conversations taking place in social networks, microblogs, group boards etc, businesses would be able to discern patterns and profiles of consumer behaviours.
• Not only will these consumer analytics help in the commerce of digital products but rather, end to end, with consumers buying time these days (ease of purchase key), businesses could look to explore differentiated offers via transmedia connecting people to a new world of entertainment (digital and physical merchandise).

Definitely non-prescriptive in the approach of how the above 3 phases "Apps-Social-Commerce" need to be deployed by businesses. It all boils down to sitting down and understanding the markets businesses would like to play in digital commerce and pursuing the relevant game-planning.

What do you think about the above 3 phases in digital commerce? What have your strategies been for your businesses and markets you play in?

Talk soon,
Nelson Wee
Catch me on Twitter @nelsonwee
Look me up on LinkedIn

10 Key Takeways from the Ancillary Revenue World Asia 2011 Conference in Singapore

I attended and presented recently at the Ancillary Revenue World Asia 2011 conference in Singapore.  It was an excellent 2 days where I valued meeting up and learning from a number of key management illuminaries from the airlines, hotel, travel, banking and insurance industries.


Here are 10 takeaways I put together from the conference.

1. "Treating People Right" - Tune Hotel's Mark Lankester believes in focusing on the customer's core needs, debundle the rest like insurance, transport and even air-con which could be offered as an upsell when required.
2. Mobile commerce will go Social and Local (with location-based services) and audience management of your consumers through search will go from PC-WEB to Mobile-WEB to TV-WEB (XBox-Kinect), says Manish Ladha, Microsoft.
3. Apps can expand ancillary channels to your business by driving new different ways in content consumption, and also offering new debundling and repackaging opportunities to your products - says well me, Nelson Wee, SingTel
4. Move from segments to customer-centric approach in targeting your customers - says Steve Pinchuk, Melco Crown Entertainment
5. Embed cross-selling opportunities before, during and post the booking process - best practices from Amit Saberwal, Makemytrip.com
6. Grow your partnership from a marketing partnership (value driven) to an ancillary partnership (revenue driven) - Wong Soon-Hwa, Hertz International
7. Best route to ancillary revenues is not to aim directly at revenue but at customer experience and value (case study on grabbing in-destination share of wallet through ancillaries) - says Aseem Sadana, Isango!
8. Using opt-out to good effect in booking process can give outstanding customer take-up in your ancillary services - Lim Kim Hai, Regional Express
9. Manage effective revenue management by balancing between your core and ancillary products, creating value for your customer and never over-bundle (instead review and fine-tune your current bundles) - Doug Hesley, The Four Seasons Hotel & Resorts
10. Generate revenue from cross-selling across multiple products through a centralized marketing organization, who looks to solving a need of your customer with a simple to sell, buy and service product, and follow up incremental value through life stage mapping - says Basker Rangachari, Standard Chartered

Well ok, I cannot resist providing a bonus takeaway from a good buddy of mine, Miguel Bernas, SingTel who was among the panelists during the "Social Media: Dwindling Potential" discussion.
11. Social Media could potentially replace the ice-cream parlour or the Saturday night poker game where you gather with your buddies and engage on stuff which happened over the recent week.  Perhaps brands could offer a corner of the ice-cream parlour and partake in the engagement and conversations of their customers.

Here is also my presentation deck for your viewing.  Most welcome your views!

How the use of apps can successfully expand ancillary channels & viability

View more presentations from Nelson Wee

Til later,
Nelson Wee
engage me here or in Twitter @nelsonwee

How are eShopping trends shaping the market?

These days, we see high growth with the usage of the mobile internet in SouthEast Asia. Besides your wallet and your keys, your mobile is probably the third personal item always by your side.  In fact in a global survey conducted by OnDevice Research, it described how Asian consumers, more often than other consumers, would first go to their phones to research or purchase goods and services.  To save time and get things done more efficiently in today's world, your mobile has become an ancillary channel for eShop browsing to help source, service and support your purchase decisions.

In fact, from a PayPal research done Jan-Feb 2011, there were several interesting findings:

1. Singapore online commerce market reached S$1.1 billion in 2010, and will grow to S$4.4 billion in 2015.
2. 1.2 million Singaporean online shoppers (above the age of 18 years old) had an average spend per head of S$1,492 over the past year.
3. 84% of Singaporeans used their mobile device to either research or purchase goods.
4. Mobile eShopping is in its infancy stage comprising 4% of online shopping market.
5. Over 364 thousand Singaporean online shoppers spent S$43 million ($$119/user) on their mobile devices last year, approximately 4% of the online shopping market
6. 40% (~S$420 million) of online purchases were domestic.

Stores in Singapore could well look into putting together a multi-channel approach to in their sales and marketing.  From a merchandising perspective, the I Love Deals in-app survey infographic below show that the 3 top products consumers expressed interest in online deals were clothing, shoes and consumer electronics.

With online and mobile eShopping primed to take off in Asia and Singapore,

• How will sales and marketing change with eCoupons, vouchers?  What are the ancillary revenue opportunities?
• How will apps, the Web, TV impact marketing, promotions and distribution channels for eShopping?  How will these ancillary channels evolve?
• With daily deals fatigue, what are the new models in eShopping?  Is gamification trending as an engagement tactic?  Is yield management a new model to look into?

I look forward to engage into further discussions on the above.

til later,
Nelson Wee
@nelsonwee

References:
1. The Stats and Facts of Online Shopping in Singapore
2. Mobile commerce on growth path in Asia Pacific
3. PayPal Study Shows Singaporeans Find Value in Shopping on Local Websites