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

4 More Hot Trends to watch for in 2013

In my last post, I talked about the following 4 Hot Trends to watch for in 2013 ... 

(1) Tablets will rule with Smart Tabs, Mass Tabs, Phablets

(2) Content and merchandise everywhere

(3) Apps with niche communities thrive

(4) Communication made richer via mobile social

Here are 4 more trends in 2013 to look out for:
(5) Connecting the last mile to spur innovation

• In a previous post "5 pillars of digital content internet business", the fifth pillar in the digital content value chain is fulfilment - the last mile connection to the consumer in terms of actually delivering the content and the associated analytics behind the transactions.
• However, there are inherent issues in the mobile network congestion in the mobile operators' networks, increasingly in a number of markets like Australia, Singapore etc. With growing consumer dissatisfaction, content and service providers will be faced with huge barriers caused by on-going user experience, consumer adoption of their services, and growing their businesses.
• So, it is not surprising to see offload of mobile data traffic to Wifi from smartphones and tablets. In the US according to Cisco forecast, mobile data traffic offload to Wifi have grown from 21% in 2010 to almost 50% in 2011.
• So, whilst there are challenges in the market forces, it is encouraging to see  Government initiatives to encourage mobile data offload to wifi in the US (policy to encourage innovation) and Malaysia (policy on Wifi coverage in Kuala Lumpur shopping malls).
• Watch out also for innovative startups like yourkarma riding on this wave to better serve the disgruntled and time-starved digital consumer who demand always on-the-go connectivity.  

(6) BYOD + MDM comes to the Living Room

• With the ubiquity of cloud driving the digital life of consumers, BYOD is becoming commonplace everywhere - in schools, in offices.
• Given that multiple device ownership of laptops, tablets, smartphones are becoming commonplace, use of tablets and smartphones for interactive second screen viewing  and SmartTVs coming of age, it would only be a matter of time when we see MDM (Mobile Device Management) bringing end to end device management to the living rooms.
• Mobile device management companies will need to cater not only to the device settings, but soon also with the digital rights of contents to the different screens and context of delivery and consumption.

(7) With SoLoMo, comes LOY

• "Social", "Location" and "Mobile" trends aka SoLoMo, are growing on both sides of the equation from demand (consumers) to supply (market players in ecosystem).
• With growth in SoLoMo, loyalty and retention of these digital consumers are now being looked into by a number of market players like GameMaki (offers fun gamification for retailers), Perx (all-in-one loyalty program in your mobile), Gimmie (enable engagement and loyalty in apps through gamifying rewards).
• In Korea, Gifticon (mobile gift voucher) and OKcashbag (all-in-one smart wallet for loyalty points across many brands and retailers) have been growing from strength to strength for more than 6 years and more than 10 years respectively. (declaration here: I am currently employed in SK planet, heading the Southeast Asia operations)
• Next, what with Google with its indoor maps and upcoming Google Glasses, and Nokia with its indoor maps and City Lens Augmented Reality offerings increasing their respective coverage in indoor maps and contextual recommendations, and Singapore companies like YFind providing accurate indoor location and data collection, we will see a converged focus of SoLoMo with LOYALTY.

(8) Health and happiness of consumers

• Curation is important. In the year ahead, tomorrow's consumers will grow more demanding with the increasing deluge of media and communication coming right at them.
• Careful attention and respect needs to be paid to permission-based data collection and profiling of consumers, taking note and balancing with their privacy needs.
• Also to note, a study suggests that 66% of consumers now expect customer care via social media, aka social care and so businesses will need to take ownership and drive omni-channel marketing into this area to achieve customer happiness.

In summary, 2013 will portend new, innovative, challenging and potentially game-changing market plays from the following 8 hot trends.

1. multiple devices and bigger viewing real estates, 
2. to content and merchandise, 
3. to apps offering windows to various/niche social communities, 
4. to richer forms of interactive communication and messaging,
5. to connecting the last mile and help drive consumption,
6. to MDM in the living room,
7. to the focused convergence of SoLoMoLOY,
8. and finally for the market need of businesses today in accounting for the health and happiness of their consumers.

What are your views on these hot trends in 2013? 

Let's do connect.
Nelson Wee
Twitter: @nelsonwee
LinkedIn Profile: http://www.linkedin.com/in/nelsonwee
Slideshare materials: http://www.slideshare.com/nelsonwee
Pinterest materials: http://pinterest.com/nelsonwee/

Photo credit: OllieBray / Foter.com / CC BY-NC-SA

Here are the reference links for this post for your reference: 

1. Telstra 3G customers complain about network congestion in Melbourne
2. Poor network experiences put Singapore Telcos under pressure
3. Is Cisco stacking the deck with its mobile data numbers?
4. In the US, tech, telecom giants take sides as FCC proposes large public WiFi networks
5. Malaysia government internet and mobile phone access policies 
6. Kuala Lumpur’s municipal government introduced a new policy to require businesses (occupying more than 120sq m floor space) acquiring a food and beverage license to provide free or low cost WiFi service.
7. Location-based services market trends and value chain
8. OKCashbag Case Study
9. Indoor GPS Singapore company, YFind
10. Study suggests that two-thirds of consumers now expect social care

4 Hot Trends to watch in 2013

Looking back 2012, lots have certainly transpassed.  It was incidentally around the same time last year  when I penned "5 Hot Trends to watch in 2012".  In 2012, cloud, social and mobility drove the feverish growth in the ecosystem from startups, incubators, investors, system integrators, enterprises, brands etc, as well as choice and consumption changes in consumer behaviour. 



With 2013, we could see the promise and potential in the following themes:

1. Everything gets smarter, more fun and unstructured.
2. Devices help consumers with recommendations to content and merchandise.
3. Cloud enable content and data transport, storage and backup to different devices everywhere.
4. Consumer loyalty will be driven across multiple experiences.

How would the above factor out in terms of possible trends? Here is part 1 of the view from Nelson Wee :-)

(1) Tablets will rule with Smart Tabs, Mass Tabs, Phablets

• Tablets and its hybrid convertibles phablets (large 5" to 7" screen touchscreen devices) will get smarter, cheaper and made available en-masse.
• In my earlier post "why are there huge opportunities in Connecting People through Mobile Social Messaging", I brought up Mary Meeker's 2012 year end internet trends presentation which pointed out the high internet user adds especially in the emerging markets (i.e. Indonesia, Philippines, Vietnam). I also wrote about this in an earlier post "Doorway to the Mobile Internet opens in Southeast Asia, a high growth market in the making".
• Increasingly Asian mobile consumers value larger screens to consume mobile content, in parallel with TV watching.
• In fact, living with the larger screens in with phablets and tablets becomes addictive.
• And one more proof point, iPad mini and Samsung Note tablets have been out of stock in Singapore in the last couple of weeks apparently from the retail stores here I have heard!

(2) Content and merchandise everywhere

• To match the mobility and on-the-go lifestyles of consumers, not only will content need to be availed via multiple screens (feature phones, smartphones, tablets, PCs, Smart TVs etc), physical merchandise will be sold via mobile and bundled with digital content  - this being evident with Amazon.com's foray into the tablet and mobile commerce market.
• Whilst digital rights management (aka DRM) technologies are available today from the likes of companies like Lotaris, the current on-going debate between eBooks and publishers lends caution however to the business issues which need to be resolved along the content value chain.

(3) Apps with niche communities thrive

• In an earlier post "Key themes from Sparxup 2012 in Jakarta", various apps based on niche focused communities (e.g. for backpackers, food recipes) are sprouting up and have the potential to continue to thrive together with the larger social media communities, Facebook.
• Social networks around education and kids via edtech technologies also have an opportunity to grow in particular with the needs of parents and their concerns for their children's future.  Content portals made relevant for kids like WhizTimes are also establishing their foothold to cater to this market.
• Coupled with mobile and social technologies, niche communities can flourish in tandem.

(4) Communication made richer via mobile social

• In my last post "Why are there huge opportunities in Connecting People through Mobile Social Messaging", I highlighted the why and how hot the mobile social messaging market is developing globally, in particular Southeast Asia.
• Additional industry momentum on such Rich Communication Services is also being orchestrated by a global program, marketed as "Joyn", and project led by GSMA, is increasingly deployed to more operators to enable inter-operator instant messaging or chat, video sharing and file transfers.
• Consumers are looking for quick and easy sharing of their media (photos, videos, text etc) with their circles of friends and extended networks, depending on their context.
• Stay tuned to how the various mobile social messaging players evolve their solution platform offerings (e.g. mobile social games, themes, ancillary apps, merchandise) to ensure frequent engagement and viral acquisition.
• Here is Tictocplus - an example of a mobile social messaging platform service for quick and easy sharing of your photos and videos in your chats with your friends (disclosure: Tictocplus is from SK planet, where I am at currently).

Here are my initial take on 4 hot trends I see coming for 2013.

What are your thoughts on 2013 hot trends?

Talk soon,
Nelson Wee
twitter: @nelsonwee
my profile: http://www.linkedin.com/nelsonwee

More reference links for your read:

1. What 5 trends to look out for at CES 2013
2. Most anticipated tech gadgets for 2013
3. 10 Tech Trends to watch for in 2013
4. 10 Marketing Trends to watch for in 2013
5. Arip identifies top 5 trends to watch in 2013
6. 5 predictions for Twitter in 2013
7. Living with a big screen phone

What does today's Cloud mean for tomorrow's Digital Life?

Today, the ubiquity of "cloud" and its computing, platform and infrastructure opportunities are offering new ways of offering value to consumers from both a business to consumer (B2C) or a business to business (B2B) perspective. Consuming content via the cloud is not new - we have in the last couple of decades been accessing data and applications via private networks (via VPNs, EDI etc) and later public networks (via the Internet).  However, it is the increasing (need for) digitisation of contents and pervasive mobility offered via low-cost PCs, tablets and smartphones or mobile devices, which is leveling the playing field in terms of availing the media creation and consumption globally - bringing forth the new order of Digital Life.  A recent article which I came across "Digital cloud devours our books, CDs, DVDs, photos" evidenced the changing content consumption behavior with the digital cloud.

So, how will today's cloud impact on tomorrow's digital life?  I have put down the following 3 areas for further discussion.



(1) Big Data becomes Action Data

• 1 of the 2012 trends I highlighted in my earlier post was Data Science.
• Operators, over-the-top (OTT) players and other ecosystem players start collaborating in various forms and work to reach their (global, local) glocal customers.
• From cloud, voice and big data, petabytes of customers' consumption data will be turned into shared insights and soon, customers could get told of what they would want next - cool huh?
  

(2) Building Symbiotic Ecosystems

• Through partnerships and collaborations, content partners become excited with their soon global, regional, local (i.e. glocal) play and cross-platform reach.
• The value chain of media-commerce-data start getting stitched together in the digital life  ecosystem.
• Ecosystem players develop a symbiotic cross-platform play in mobile (from feature phones to smartphones to tablets), broadband (PC, Ultrabooks), TV (with triple play!) as well as retail and other associative online (eShop, social media, online portal) touch-points.

And the beauty of it? The ecosystem could be scaled in the cloud - be it public or private.



(3) Connecting People to a new World of Entertainment

• The downtime of consumers will never be the same again.
• Consumers can read an ebook (local or international bestseller), or go hunting for treasures online, offline or a hybrid of both, with a mobile social game.
• Jurassic Park can suddenly come alive from your mobile device.

And the most beautiful part?
The Digital Life ecosystem will be developing transmedia offers with ancillary product and revenue opportunities in packaging mobile games, trading cards, ebooks, print books (via screenplays), movies, VOD, DVDs, online communities, celebrity endorsements, TV shows ... you get the drift. 

Here are some examples:

1. "Adventures of Tin Tin" (from graphic novel to screenplay movie, novel)
2. Animal Kaiser trading card game - see pic above. 
3. mobile social games from Gree.

And yeah, marketing and selling becomes loads more fun than before!  Have a look at how a  popular Gree mobile social game Doliland (which is making a tune of US$50million/mth in Japan!) is being promoted via TVCs with a local Japanese band.




What are your thoughts on what the new Digital Life will herald?


talk soon,
Nelson Wee
engage with me via @nelsonwee

3 Trends in Social Media & Web 3.0 (PART 1)

Do you remember Ask Jeeves?  Valet, concierge services, whether offline, online or a hybrid of both click and mortar have been a facination of mine - how we as man constantly strive to get the automation of semantic understanding going, to enable our every whim and fancy more easily achievable with today's or tomorrow's hardware and software platforms. 

As an on-going observation, I put together my thoughts on what I see as the 3 trends on-going in today's social media, web 3.0 - how we are moving into the futuristic age of the Semantic Web (we are getting closer) and what we could look forward or look out for.



(1) Doing all your computing in the cloud

Google and Facebook are positioning themselves as your life's dashboard.  You do not need to have powerful computers or all the applications in your PC or mobile phone to perform tasks.  Cloud computing that's the buzz word and that's where a number of organisations are moving towards. 

Before Google Buzz came along, I was reading about a Singaporean company called Social Wok (have a look at the screenshot I link from SocialWok) who at last year's TechCrunch50 conference, made a big splash by winning the award for best demopit startup and launching its enterprise-friendly, FriendFeed-like layer for Google Apps - launching a social network wrapped around the very unsocial Google Apps.  In 22-JAN ’10: SocialWok launched a gadget to allow users access all the features of Socialwok without leaving Gmail. With the new gadget, Socialwok’s interface will appear within Gmail’s main canvas. Users can view, post and comment on updates; access feeds, files and Google Docs and search for posts, people, feeds, and files. Hmm, thought: a potential candidate for Google Acquisition?  Then along came #googlebuzz (just go search for Google Buzz or #googlebuzz in Twitter).

Then you have Facebook, where you can broadcast your life's moments, email, chat, upload and share photos, play social games like farming with friends and there are lots more apps which you could access from Facebook or apps you could link to Facebook available in the various Apps Stores.

More later as I talk about the other 2 trends
(2) My life needs to be served by a click (& quickly - thanks!)

(3) Privacy is but a window away

Nelson Wee
@nelsonwee