On 19 September, we had our bi-monthly BizSpark night with over 70 startup founders and investors. We’ve summarised the highlights below:

The first speaker, Saemin Ahn from Rakuten Ventures, spoke on fundraising for startups. Rakuten Ventures is currently offering seed funding for aspiring entrepreneurs ranging from USD700, 000 – USD 1,000,000, and typically look for C2C based e-commerce companies.

What do Rakuten Ventures look for in startups?

Rakuten Ventures are interested in innovative startups passionate about their great ideas. Ideally, Saemin said he was looking for startups developing a new app or product in a competing marketplace. Startups with existing apps may also qualify if they were able to enhance their app and bring a meaningful purpose of technologies to consumers and enterprises. In addition, startups should have the drive and commitment to experiment and improve with the collation of user activity and feedback. Saemin also commented that he is particularly interested in companies developing technologies such as:

1. Data Encryption, due to surveillance efforts and privacy concerns. He pointed to recent coverage on how people access cloud based data without the data’s owner knowledge or consent.
2. Prepaid card solutions, specifically how to legally release value in prepaid cards  and payment transactions for convenience, accessibility and safeguarding.

He mentioned that he is currently not keen to be an incubator/investor for messaging platforms in the vein of WhatsApp or LINE, due to the current saturated state of the market.

We also had Neng Giin from Microsoft Singapore speaking about the benefits Windows Azure brings to startups. Windows Azure is an open and flexible cloud platform built for developers to deploy and manage applications and services. It provides in-built SQL server database, virtual machines as well as the ability to publish websites easily with WordPress. Neng Giin described the benefits of Windows Azure in terms of Cost, Agility and Reliability.

Cost. With Windows Azure, there is little up-front capital expenditure and no licensing worries. Startup developers could run in excess of thousands of dollars in hardware and licensing in developing and deployment which eat into their budgets. Azure’s products are fully licensed and are production-ready for a one-time fee.

Agility. Remote access from anywhere, anytime. Traditional servers used remote desktop for some time and configuration is always needed. Windows Azure speeds things up two-fold by providing pre-configured FQDN for connection purposes. It is simple, competitively priced and affordable enough to be flexible for any virtualization project need.

Reliability. Microsoft is known to produce products of a high quality and standard, and open to new areas of opportunity, such as pushing email to the cloud with office 365, leaving many impressed with the performance of Window Azure.

Lastly, we had Eric Meyer, Entrepreneur of Nubefy Pte Ltd sharing how to build a successful cloud based business. As the last speaker, he summed up six key points for companies and entrepreneurs.

How do you want to start your business– Many people build companies for many reasons, some are driven by wealth and some by passion to solve a problem. There are two ways to start up. One of the ways is to think of a great idea. Most Startups begin by compelling ideas from mundane services that people need that would make peoples life easier. The more originality the idea has, the higher the chance of the business being successful. Alternatively, Startups could also utilize the tools that are readily available, which adds value to the existing applications or products.

Start in attractive industries and create opportunities– There are industries that are under-served with a growing demand surge from consumers. Listen to the clients. Make sure you are building something that people “actually want”. Triple the amount of time you think it will take to develop your product, the amount of time to have your customers and the amount of money it will cost. Entrepreneurs are made, not born – they are the sum of their obstacles, failures and successes. Eric Meyer commented that with more experience, the more successful an entrepreneur would be, as life experiences are often the best teachers. Being an entrepreneur requires courage to make the choice every minute of every day, and to put thoughts into actions.

Seek or not to seek for venture funding – Majority of the startups were too concerned in raising funds for their company such that they got distracted from their overall goal, which is to produce, develop and market their application or product. Revising the problem and making sure there is a good market strategy on hand will ensure definite funding from organisations and investors.

Most grants come with strings attached – Grants are always awarded to companies with stipulated conditions. The important thing was to do their research, weigh the pros and cons of getting funding and always read the fine print before making any commitments.

Entrepreneurs require discipline – When an investor decides to invest on your startup; he/she has already decided to put their trust in your ability to execute your business well. It is therefore important to be organized and disciplined, and have careful management to reach the desired goal.

As entrepreneurs, are we individualistic? It is entirely impossible to be the lone enterpriser without the knowledge, expertise and experience to run the entire company. The best organisations with real staying power are fueled by well-run teams. It is important to have good talent acquisition before the formation of a company – to search for suitable people with skills and experiences that will help during the execution of the company.

After the session, in conjunction with the Mid-Autumn Festival, the guests were treated with Durian Mooncakes for Networking, bringing a closure of yet another BizSpark night. We want to express our warmest appreciations to our guest speakers for sharing their experiences with us and to all who had attended the night!

 

 

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