In the next installment of our Startup and Developer feature series, Spiffy talks to Nicholas Yong, the founder of BridgingMinds, a BizSpark startup. BridgingMinds is a Singapore startup with a recent unique take on online learning systems for companies called LeanersHive. I’ll leave it to Nicholas to tell you more!
Describe yourself in three words. Why?
Never say DIE! As an entrepreneur and startup, we are constantly finding way to gain acceptance of our new products and services to our clients. It is an up hill battle and many may fall due to the many factors. Strength of character and never say die attitude is what keeps us going strong and listening to our clients on what’s need to be done.
Tell us who is BridgingMinds, and what is the origin story of the team?
BridgingMinds Network was created initially for 2 reasons – (1) To build a company which centres around it’s people and partners and (2) providing products and services that would enable HR department within any company to be more strategic and enabled. In many companies, staff are typically pigeon-hole in their career or lack the opportunity to rise due to “certs” or lack of training or transparency. While companies have been adopting technology like ERP system for finance and other areas of automation. HR and Education within organisations is solely lacking.
Companies HR are also more operational than strategic in most cases. We want to change all that by providing enabling tools for HR. CFO would not have it’s strategic views and importance without an ERP system, thus HR also needs an ERP system for human capital.
Our focus in this area synonymous to our slogan of “CONNECTING PEOPLE, BUSINESSES AND CAREERS”
What does Bridging Minds do?
Started as an IT Training company with an aim to be a regional player for talent management and development. We have grown quickly in the IT Education by providing quality training and have develop our own IP in some international recognised programs such as ITIL and Project Management. However, we are all fully aware of classroom limitations for our operations as well as our clients.
Learnershive is part of our extensive plan to enable training companies and other companies to go “E”. We believe the growing acceptance is partly due to the proliferation of Youtube and MOOC sites making video learning more acceptable as well as proliferation of BYOD within organisations. However, the limitation of providers that may have overcrowding advertisement or that it is a public site which is not suitable corporate use. Current content management systems are also very expensive thus the idea of developing a multi-tenanted video delivery platform idea was born.
It seems like you guys have no lack of competitors in this space! What do you think makes Bridging Minds unique?
We are focus on human resource and human capital with an aim to making HR an indispensable part of an Organisation.
The presence of competitors shows that this concept is growing and accepted. Learnershive works best on clients who have a situation where they need to provide consistent training to many people.
However, our uniqueness is in 3 areas.
1) Unlike most technology providers, we are not only able to provide the technology platform but also the professional services in content licensing as well as story-boarding and media development.
2) Learnershive is build with simplicity of use in mind. People as ask if we are an LMS, I would say that we are a simplified online video training platform with portions of LMS build-in. For any trainer or training company, this platform can enable you or your company to provide your very own “brand” online e-learning site with your clients within days.
We have incorporated the ability of a (1) e-commerce and voucher engine, (2) quiz and Learners reporting engine, (3) video conversion and support media such as office doc and PDF and Zip, as well as (4) an ability to create groups and aligning groups to private courses.
Our “White-labeled Solution”, at a cost-effective subscription mode based on active users, is what sets us apart from many providers.
3) Lastly, Learnershive is just the first step in providing HR with the ability to increase efficiency and importance. Learnershive together with our existing solutions in LMS and Competency Management System. completes the end-to-end for larger enterprises where competency framework forms the core of employees measurements leading to IDP ( individual development plan ) which can link to LMS or Video Learning Platform.
BridgingMinds sure has grown since it’s founding. Could you share how the company has changed and adapted?
When we first started out, we were merely resellers of other programs. Getting new clients was hard as there was no mindshare. Educating our clients on what we presenting and showing how we can be a partner to their business was important. Overtime, any feedback or any criticism from a partner or client became valuable feedback. A strong pulse of the market was very valueable for us to create our niche.
Today we not only own our own courseware in delivering world-class accredited training in the class or online but also solutions in enabling HR and Learning Department the tools they need to succeed
I’m sure you guys have had many customers and clients, are there any interesting stories that you can share with us?
Since the launch of Learnershive Enterprise a month ago, we have gotten plenty of interest from companies in industries such as recruitment, distribution, system integrators, insurance and retailing chain. They all have one thing in common which is the challenge to provide training and information to their staff or clients anytime, anywhere regardless if it is for support, sales or compliance.
2 of our existing clients today includes
a) GISW ( Global Institute of Social Work ) whose vision is to provide the best social work training from around the world for social workers around the world. They have just launch their site and can be seen at http://training.thegisw.org.
b) Primestaff Management Services Pte Ltd, they are planning to use our platform for not just internal sales training but for their clients in the area of HR Management and awareness.
BridgingMinds has been on the Bizspark program for about a year now, how have the resources helped you out?
BizSpark program is everything that I can hope for. Not only are the pricing now matching AWS or better. WE are also getting support in development via some of the developers in Microsoft team helping us with coding and also marketing activities with Spiffy. Bizspark subscription is also very valuable for us in allowing us to enjoy support and downloads in most of Microsoft existing software.
Thank you so much! What should Spiffy readers do if they want to check you out?
Check us out at http://enterprise.learnershive.com to find out more about Learnershive or http://www.bridgingminds.net on our business. We are constantly in the lookout for not just clients but also partners whom we can work with to grow our business together.
I can be reached via email at nicholas.yong@learnershive.com
We’ve come up with a little offer for Spiffy readers too: to be entitled to a further 1 month subscription discount for every 12 month subscription, do fill up this form @ (http://goo.gl/forms/IA12onmwEo) and we will speak with you soon!
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Thank you Nicholas for your time!
See you in the next startup and developer feature. If you have any interesting developers or startups that you want to highlight to the community, feel free to do so in the comments!
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