Echelon 2012 essentials — your guide to Asia’s key tech startup event

Organized by tech blog e27 for the third year running, Echelon 2012 is a key startup launchpad in Asia with over 1,100 delegates in attendance and 50 startups exhibiting in the Marketplace. The two-day, double-track event, which will be held on 11th and 12th June, plays host to a list of distinguished speakers who will discuss the latest trends in Asia’s startup scene.

The conference will also feature a startup pitch competition, where 10 companies will take the stage to win the audience and the judges over — and hopefully secure their next round of investments. These finalists were selected from a series of Satellite events held around Asia earlier in the year.

In this page, you will find everything we have about the conference and the startups that are being showcased. Check back here often as we’ll constantly update it with more content.

The startups of Echelon 2012

AtticTV (Malaysia) is taking on YouTube is a crazy idea, but co-founders Johnson Goh and Grey Ang are up for it. Their website essentially streams users a constant diet of music videos — it’s like watching MTV the old-school way. Read more

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With 400,000 users, Between (South Korea) is one of the most widely-used private social network for couples. And they’re just getting started. Read more

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DropMySite (Singapore) is a startup that isn’t afraid to roll the dice with its grand ideas. Their product, Dropmyemail, has massive traction and its founder, John Fearon, brims with brash confidence.

Six failed businesses on, Dropmyemail’s John Fearon says, “I’m amazing”
Singapore’s Dropmyemail snags senior Google exec
Buy And Sell Offline Media With EatAds.com
DropMySite lets you backup your website over the cloud

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Evenpanda (Singapore) is doing an online activities marketplace that lets users sell experiences to customers. This lovechild of Airbnb and Pinterest was born in May. Read more

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Launched in 2003, Mobile9 (Malaysia) is an old-timer that’s still going strong. They sell mobile content. Read more

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Perx (Singapore) has an influential backer: Facebook co-founder Eduardo Saverin. By merging the daily deals business model with the digital loyalty cards concept, they could take Asia by storm. Read more

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RedMart (Singapore) is making supermarkets sexy again. It is an online store that stocks your daily essentials and delivers them to you.

These former investment bankers are changing grocery shopping
Meet RedMart, the latest (and greatest?) online mart in Singapore

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ShopSpot (Thailand) is a promising, relatively young startup that has garnered 10,000 downloads within two months and generated strong investor interest. The JFDI Bootcamp alumnus has developed mobile app makes buying and selling really easy.

Flocations, ShopSpot get investment offers from SingTel Innov8, says fund’s new CEO
Mobile shopping app ShopSpot snags investment from Thai investors
Selling on Craigslist and eBay sucks; try ShopSpot instead

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Like Perx, Squiyl (Singapore) is a mobile loyalty program app. Unlike its competitor, it places more emphasis on social sharing. They recently expanded to Indonesia. Read more

Lead up to Echelon 2012

31st May, 2012: Strongest Lineup of Start-ups Ever at Echelon 2012
22nd March, 2012: Echelon 2012 Startup Marketplace open to applications

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Book Review: Insanely Simple by Ken Segall

If you want to read a first person account on how Apple has designed, implemented and executed their marketing and advertising campaigns, Insanely Simple: That Obsession that Drives Apple’s Success by Ken Segall offers a glimpse on how the concept of simplicity drives Apple as a company.

As the person who was part of the team who came up with the famous “Think Different” TV advertisement and putting the letter “i” behind all Apple products, Ken Segall organizes Steve Job’s obsession into 10 simple principles.

You should not be surprised that this book holds a very opinionated view as compared to the two books written by journalists narrating the story of Steve Jobs and Apple: Walter Isaacson’s “Steve Jobs” biography or Adam Lashinsky’s “Inside Apple”.

The book sets up the concept of simplicity and Apple’s obsession has formed the bedrock of what distinguishes the company against her competitors. The anecdotes give a bird’s eye view on how Apple is structured, the way it innovates and how it speaks to its customers. Throughout the book, the author contrasts how Apple works in contrast with its competitors, for example, IBM, Intel, Dell and Microsoft.

It uses examples like the Think Different Ad and the famous Mac vs PC TV ads to illustrate the ten principles, which I’ll summarize below:

1. Think Brutal: In Segall’s words, “Blunt is Simplicity. Meandering is Complexity.” Most of the stories in this chapter talks about how Steve Jobs organized his meetings with very small teams and denied access to anyone if they add to the head count of the meeting or have no form of contribution to the discussion.

2. Think Small: Apple utilized the power of small groups of people to achieve the maximum results and produce great products. He puts it this way: “The quality of work resulting from a project is inversely proportional to the number of people involved in the project.” He explains how some decisions made by big companies took a long time with committees or people passing the buck to each other. In fact, he stressed that if the decision maker is involved in that process, the quality of the work from that small team will have greater impact.

3. Think Minimal: A relatively simple chapter on how Apple streamlined their products and constrained the form factor such that proliferation is difficult. Ken Segall argued that the proliferation and giving consumers more choice actually confuses them. Here’s an interesting anecdote: Mark Parker, president and CEO of Nike, sought the advice of Steve Jobs, who told him that Nike built great products but also a lot of crap which should be gotten rid of. It seems that he has dispensed the same advice later to Larry Page who became the CEO of Google last year.

4. Think Motion: Using Leonard Bernstein’s quote, To achieve great things, two things are needed: a plan and not quite enough time. The author added two more elements to how Apple adopted this principle by aiming realistically high and never stop moving.

5. Think Iconic: This chapter is dedicated to the back story of the “Think Different” campaign and provided Steve Jobs’ view of marketing and in his words, “To me, marketing is about values. This is a very complicated world, it’s a very noisy world, and we’re not going to get a chance to get people to remember much about us. No company is. And so we have to be really clear on what we want them to know about us …”

Steve Job’s narration of the famous Apple “Think Different” advertisement6. Think Phrasal: This part of the book talks about how Apple names its products and how the letter “i” got in.

7. Think Casual: This chapter presents short notes on how Apple and Dell executives look at presentations. The former embraces a casual approach and Steve Jobs just wants the presenter to be straightforward and get to the main principles, while the latter wants a formal presentation that creates a barrier to conversation and engagement between the brand and the consumers.

8. Think Human: You might have read this in many articles about Steve Jobs and Apple. It’s the part about not relying on focus groups but what you would to do with the product as a user. In fact, we have heard on many occasions, the people who designed the iPhone, hated how mobile phones work in the past, and built one that they would love to use.

9. Think Skeptic: The best way to summarize this chapter is to use a line from Steve Job’s 2005 commencement speech to Stanford, “Don’t let the noise of other’s opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition.” The stories of how skeptics viewed the Apple retail stores when it first emerged and how the subsequent results defied expectations ring a bell.

10. Think War: The very last principle showed how Apple has a rich history of focusing on their objectives and zeroing in on specific competitors.

If you want an eye witness account on how Apple actually conducts it business, this is the book to read. Some of the anecdotes and comparisons with other brands will convey Apple’s unique perspective, which defies popular opinion. That’s why the book simply concludes with: “Think Different”.

Interview of Ken Segall on TechCrunch TV

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Croak.It Wants To Be The Voice of the Web

Voice messaging is pretty common nowadays. Chat apps like WeChat and Whatsapp have their own voice messaging feature. There’s also Talkbox that works like WeChat but focuses primarily on voice. And not forgetting Bubbly which is a Twitter-like voice service. All of these voice messaging services are either bound within an app or its own social network.

But Croak.it, a startup from entrepreneurs working in India and U.S., has a more “open” approach towards voice messaging. It allows users of the internet to push and speak on any webpages that uses its API. You can record and then send the voice messages to other social networks. That’s for the web, though. Croak.it can also be incorporated in mobile apps too. One of the company’s representatives told me:

[Developers can use] the API to develop a plethora of voice based applications. For example – if you want to develop the Talking Tom Cat (popular mobile application) functionality, all you have to do is copy paste a two line script from our API and add a third line of code which changes the frequency of the voice returned to you.

There are many other ways in which you can use Croak.it too. A customer could leave a voice feedback to express him or herself better. Blogs like ours can perhaps have voice comments one day. It’s a simple idea but maybe workable. You can catch the video below to learn more or head over to Croak.it to start “croaking.” Let us know what you think too.

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Aiiooo is a social network for pet lovers

Finding friend on Aiiooo

In love with social networks? Now there’s one for the pet lover.

Remembering those old days of the Tamagochi? A virtual pet in a small egg-shaped device from Japan that was released in the nineties and sold millions of units. Now, virtual pets have their own place on the net and we, as the owners, are able to enjoy them in an integrated social experience.

Aiiooo (the name originates from the Mandarin term “Ai Wu”, which mean loving animals) is creating a place for pet lovers to interact with each other through their virtual pets. Socializing can be done with actions like ‘pat’, ‘sniff’, ‘lick’, and even spending quality time together just like what humans need and always do.

The actions will help cheer up the pets whenever they are sad, which is indicated by the Pet Happiness Index. The more time users interact with their pets, the more they will be entitled to earn titles such as Sir, Lord, Duke and King. Additionally, each user will be able to make new friends of all shapes and sizes, set up play dates, flaunt cute pictures and track the moods of their respective pets.

To enrich the knowledge of the owners, the site provides news section displaying all the latest pet related news across the globe and tips section showing comprehensive information about pet grooming as well as how we can train our pets.

The team, which has a strong belief in their mantra “Create like a God, Command like a King and Work like a Slave”, are going to roll out a ‘virtual pet’ where everyone can join in the fun even though for those who haven’t had a pet yet. And games for users to play and earn reward points. Moreover, with points accumulated, users are allowed to buy virtual goods and accessories for their pets. With integrated marketing campaigns as one of their strongest arm, they set sights on expanding and solidifying their presence not only in Southeast Asia but rest of the world.

For the time being, the Singaporean startup would like to focus on giving owners more quality time spent with their pets and creating healthy environment for owners to learn more about pet care and welfare. “The total number of pets is over 377 million in the US alone. We already know pet owners will do anything for their pets, and often feel guilty for not spending more time with them,” CEO Mikael Teo explains.

Slideshow:

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Aiiooo is a social network for pet lovers

Finding friend on Aiiooo

In love with social networks? Now there’s one for the pet lover.

Remembering those old days of the Tamagochi? A virtual pet in a small egg-shaped device from Japan that was released in the nineties and sold millions of units. Now, virtual pets have their own place on the net and we, as the owners, are able to enjoy them in an integrated social experience.

Aiiooo (the name originates from the Mandarin term “Ai Wu”, which mean loving animals) is creating a place for pet lovers to interact with each other through their virtual pets. Socializing can be done with actions like ‘pat’, ‘sniff’, ‘lick’, and even spending quality time together just like what humans need and always do.

The actions will help cheer up the pets whenever they are sad, which is indicated by the Pet Happiness Index. The more time users interact with their pets, the more they will be entitled to earn titles such as Sir, Lord, Duke and King. Additionally, each user will be able to make new friends of all shapes and sizes, set up play dates, flaunt cute pictures and track the moods of their respective pets.

To enrich the knowledge of the owners, the site provides news section displaying all the latest pet related news across the globe and tips section showing comprehensive information about pet grooming as well as how we can train our pets.

The team, which has a strong belief in their mantra “Create like a God, Command like a King and Work like a Slave”, are going to roll out a ‘virtual pet’ where everyone can join in the fun even though for those who haven’t had a pet yet. And games for users to play and earn reward points. Moreover, with points accumulated, users are allowed to buy virtual goods and accessories for their pets. With integrated marketing campaigns as one of their strongest arm, they set sights on expanding and solidifying their presence not only in Southeast Asia but rest of the world.

For the time being, the Singaporean startup would like to focus on giving owners more quality time spent with their pets and creating healthy environment for owners to learn more about pet care and welfare. “The total number of pets is over 377 million in the US alone. We already know pet owners will do anything for their pets, and often feel guilty for not spending more time with them,” CEO Mikael Teo explains.

Slideshow:

Fullscreen:

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Wujudkan is Kickstarter For Indonesian’s Creative Industry

Wujudkan is a startup that focuses on crowdfunding for Indonesia’s creative industry. It was co-founded by four people: Mandy Marahimin, Zaki Jaihutan, Dondi Hananto, and Wicak Soegijoko. Graduated from the first class of the Jakarta Founders Institute three months ago, Wujudkan has had 12 projects since its launch.

There are more than a few startups out there doing crowdfunding but Wujudkan is different. It is launched in a country which its tech ecosystem is still new; where founders have to try to find a solution to make the crowdfunding work. Coming from diverse backgrounds – technical, finance, legal – they are trying to combine all of their knowledge to make Wujudkan take off in Indonesia.

Five of Wujudkan’s 12 projects have finished their fundraising campaigns. It involves a curation process and helps to shape each campaign in a way that will catch people’s attention. The first and the biggest project, Atambua, reached its goal just a few days before the campaign was scheduled to end. Working together with famous filmmaker Mira Lesmana and Riri Riza, it set an ambitious goal of IDR 300 millions(US$32,100) for a movie that will be recorded at East Nusa Tenggara.

Mandy Marahimin, co-founder of Wujudkan, tells us more about the project:

Having Atambua reach its goal is a huge milestone for us. It really was the effort of teamwork. Not just from the Wujudkan team, but also from Mira Lesmana and Riri Riza. We all relentlessly campaigned, blogged, tweeted, and email everyone in our address books, even meeting them offline. Yes, it is an achievement, but we still have a long way to go. What the success of this project showed me is the beauty of crowdfunding. It is not about you, it is about everyone AND you. It’s like falling in love: you have to open up and risk yourself getting hurt, but when you do and you love fearlessly, you will always get bigger returns.

As the first-moving crowdsourcing startup in Indonesia, Mandy believes that Indonesians are familiar with the concept of crowdfunding but still have a barrier of trust in doing internet transactions. The trust is starting to increase lately though, and Mandy wants Wujudkan to be up there and ready to ride the wave when it comes. Mandy told us that Wujudkan itself is currently fundraising and looking to hire a few more people to add to the small team she has.

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Youdao Claims 1% of China Search Market

Youdao, the Chinese search engine by NetEase claims 1% of China’s search market, according to it’s SVP Zhou Feng.

Zhou said that NetEase’s Youdao will be more focusing on product rather than some sort of concept. He believed that as long as the service attracts a large amount of users, making money off it with 3 ~ 5 years won’t be something that difficult.

Particularly, Youdao’s Shopping Search which is a direct competitor of Taobao’s Etao has already signed up 1000+ Chinese ecommerce company to aggregate their items across the web. The price engine can help users save money and find better bargain.

Youdao Shopping Search

Zhou revealed that there’ll be a big surprise coming up regarding Shopping Search in the third quarter, he didn’t go into details.

According to iResearch, in the first quarter of this year Baidu, Google and Sogou ranked top three in China’s search market with a market share of 77.6%, 17.8% and 12.7% respectively. Soso came in fourth with 1.5% while NetEase’s Youdao falls under the “Others” category.

As Baidu continued to cement its position in the market and Sogou managed to gobble up a bigger chunk of the area, smaller rivals like Soso and Youdao don’t really have decent opportunities if they still rival them in an all-around way.

NetEase launched Youdao in late 2007 to compete in the heated market.

Related posts:

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2. Baidu Reports US$ 105m Loss in Overseas Expansion
3. China’s CCTV Take A Shot At Baidu For Fraudulent Websites

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