Connecting Europe and Southeast Asia at the 5th Seed Forum Singapore

Seed Forum is a global organization hosting investor conferences in more than 30 countries and is considered as one of the most professional and experienced venues for presentations of investor ready start-up companies. The mission of Seed Forum is to create a global investor matchmaking market place for seed and venture capital without national or regional borders.

In partnership with the Business Angel Network (Southeast Asia) (BANSEA), the 5th edition of Seed Forum Singapore will take place on 7th June to connect angel investors with aspiring entrepreneurs from Europe and Southeast Asia. These innovative startups demonstrate great potential for global scalability and have been carefully screened and selected by the investment panel of Seed Forum International Foundation. The conference offers angel investors, angel and early-stage venture funds, investment companies and other key finance intermediaries a first-hand insight into this selected group. Investors will be given the opportunity to hold personal meetings with the companies in the afternoon as well as attend the Evening Reception.

Program

08:45am Registration & Coffee (Guests to be seated by 9:30am)
09:30am Power Pitches
09:40am Welcome Address and Keynote Speech: Mr. William Klippgen, Angel Investor
09:50am Keynote Speech: Mr. Cato Gullichen, Seed Forum Singapore
10:00am Keynote Speech: (Speaker TBC)
10:10am Business Plan Presentations by 8 startups
11:45am Networking Lunch

06:00pm -08:00pm Investor Evening Reception

Pitching Companies

Synaptic Technologies (Norway): revolutionizing technology for real-time web
Neckcare (Norway): the Fly, a device to measure neck injuries
Yobetit (United Kingdom): new concept betting platform
Practical Technology (Norway): innovative logistic system for the marine industry

And 4 more from Southeast Asia.

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Event Details

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When: Thursday 7th June 2012
Registration for Seed Forum Singapore: 8:45am-1:30pm
Registration for Investor Evening Reception: 6-8pm
Where: Taurus, Level 1, Marina Mandarin Singapore, 6 Raffles Boulevard, Marina Square, Singapore 039594

Register here.

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Upcoming UNWIRED 2012 Conference will explore opportunities in mobile

Unwired 2012 Photo: Unwired

With the mobile industry exploding and more opportunities unveiling itself in this industry, companies are no longer undermining the mobile phone.

Singapore’s independent wireless and mobile conference, UNWIRED 2012 conference, have thus emerged to explore the various opportunities and challenges in the mobile industry.

Some of the key issues which will be addressed in the conference includes smarter networks for a smoother mobile experience, machine-to-machine communications in future, the future of mobile cloud services for consumers and corporates, a unified interface for phones, tablets and PCs to access cloud services, and more. Third of its kind in Singapore, UNWIRED 2012 will not only see representatives from Google, IDA, StarHub, Samsung, Microsoft and more on stage for its keynotes, but also demos of the first Windows 8 devices this year.

Details:

What: UNWIRED 2012 conference
When: May 31, 2012, 1pm
Where: Angsana 3F, Level 3, Marina Bay Sands Convention Centre, 10 Bayfront Avenue, Singapore 018956
Website: www.unwired.com.sg

There will also be after-event drinks at MBS for a great networking session.

Each conference pass costs S$80. Members would be entitled to a 25% discount upon entry of the discount code – MBS50.

Three complimentary passes would be given to readers of e27.  To stand a chance to win at the passes, simply leave a comment telling us why you want to be at the conference.

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Upcoming UNWIRED 2012 Conference will explore opportunities in mobile

Unwired 2012 Photo: Unwired

With the mobile industry exploding and more opportunities unveiling itself in this industry, companies are no longer undermining the mobile phone.

Singapore’s independent wireless and mobile conference, UNWIRED 2012 conference, have thus emerged to explore the various opportunities and challenges in the mobile industry.

Some of the key issues which will be addressed in the conference includes smarter networks for a smoother mobile experience, machine-to-machine communications in future, the future of mobile cloud services for consumers and corporates, a unified interface for phones, tablets and PCs to access cloud services, and more. Third of its kind in Singapore, UNWIRED 2012 will not only see representatives from Google, IDA, StarHub, Samsung, Microsoft and more on stage for its keynotes, but also demos of the first Windows 8 devices this year.

Details:

What: UNWIRED 2012 conference
When: May 31, 2012, 1pm
Where: Angsana 3F, Level 3, Marina Bay Sands Convention Centre, 10 Bayfront Avenue, Singapore 018956
Website: www.unwired.com.sg

There will also be after-event drinks at MBS for a great networking session.

Each conference pass costs S$80. Members would be entitled to a 25% discount upon entry of the discount code – MBS50.

Three complimentary passes would be given to readers of e27.  To stand a chance to win at the passes, simply leave a comment telling us why you want to be at the conference.

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The Most Bizarre Tech Startup: Bury Your Deceased Loved Ones in Space and Get a SMS Every Time They Pass Over You

When I was in Seoul recently I met a tall French man named Thomas Civeit. The usual chatter popped up, “What are you doing?” I asked. “A start-up.” He replied. But he proceeded to tell me about his idea which is definitely the most bizarre one I’ve ever heard. Rather than bury your deceased family in the ground, Thomas wants to launch them into space and allow you to track them with your smartphone. His start-up Elysium Spaceflights is an early stage start-up that plans to have a detailed flyer for funeral homes and customers this summer. Sound crazy? Oscar Wilde once said “An idea that is not dangerous is unworthy of being called an idea at all.”

I interviewed Thomas to get more insight into this intriguing idea.

What is your background?

I am a former space systems engineer. I have been working for several space missions over the last 9 years: the Huygens interplanetary probe at the European Space Agency, then I moved to the US and worked for NASA’s FUSE (Far Ultraviolet Spectroscopic Explorer), Hubble Space Telescope, and James Webb Space Telescope. I’m currently working for the SOFIA mission (Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy) at NASA Ames in the Silicon Valley. My small consulting company Deneb Aerospace provides engineering services to design and operate space systems.

What is the idea?

Elysium’s goal is to make Space Burial a reality by launching the cremated remains of a loved one into Earth orbit. Only *symbolic* space burial has been done so far by launching a few grams into orbit. We want to create a new experience to celebrate people’s lives, by having funerary urns orbiting the Earth.

Why are you doing it?

People think that space is out of reach and it would be too expensive to perform a genuine space burial. I thought about the experience using the current technology and cost and realized humanity could do it right now if someone could be brave enough to make it happen. Space is an exceptional place not only for science, space tourism is growing (see SpaceX/Bigelow recent deal) and I believe space is a unique and meaningful place for memorial services.

How did you come up with the idea?

Initially nothing related to funeral actually. I was working on nano-satellite (1-10 kg) operations and I realized that teams often had a hard time finding a launch vehicle because the payload is too light and launchers are mostly interested in heavy payloads (i.e. several tons). There are also constraints related to radio-frequencies and chemicals for instance. While I was thinking about these issues, the space burial idea came to my mind. A funerary urn is the simplest “space system” I can imagine and having many of them can make an interesting payload for launchers.

How does it work?

We will collect the entire cremated remains of the participants and place them into a specially designed memorial spacecraft. A rocket will launch the memorial spacecraft into orbit, where it will remain for decades (the exact duration will depend on the launch parameters). Eventually the spacecraft will re-enter the Earth atmosphere, vaporizing and blazing as a shooting star.

An essential feature is that people will be connected to the memorial spacecraft at any time using augmented reality. Nowadays it is possible to visualize spacecrafts orbiting the Earth by pointing your phone’s camera to the sky. AGI (a leader in space and defense software applications) provides the “Satellite AR” application for instance. Moreover, we will optionally send SMS notifications to people when the spacecraft will be visible from Earth. The best time to spot satellites is in general just after dusk or just before dawn.

How much will it cost to build?

The most significant expense is the launch. The cost will depend on the number of participants and the selected launcher. There is therefore no final answer but to give an order of magnitude it can easily cost $50-100M, as we plan to use the most reliable launch vehicles.

How much will you charge people?

We plan to charge around $200,000 per participant.

Who are you targeting?

Japan and North America are good places to start, although the service will not be limited to these countries. The cremation rate is about 99% in Japan and 40% in USA. It corresponds to about 2 millions of cremated people per year overall, and much more by considering cremations over the last 10-20 years. We need to reach a few hundreds of families, who are willing to have an exceptional and unique celebration and be part of human history.

When will you launch?

Once we will have enough participants. Companies offering launch services typically have a lead time of about a year or more once the payload is ready. If it goes really fast, the launch may happen by the end of 2013.

—

For people wanting a really unique way of burying their family or friends, it is hard to beat a space burial.

Related posts:

1. Live Blog: Competition Session 2: Growth-Stage Pitches
2. Ushi – the making Chinese Linkedin
3. Shanda Note: Free and Permanent Cloud Storage

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Microsoft Corporate VP Hadba urges app designers to think of cloud design before anything else

Redmond-based Vice President Walid Abu-Hadba on stage

A  session held on the 15 May for Indonesian local startups, “Microsoft BizSpark Startup Night” witnessed the presence of a special guest speaker, Walid Abu-Hadba.

The Palestinian-born tech executve, who was also the main presenter, is the Redmond-based corporate vice president, developer and platform evangelism group at Microsoft.

In his 40-minute talk, shared about Microsoft Cloud Computing Platform“Windows Azure” and how he leads efforts in building vibrant solutions ecosystems through technical evangelism, community engagement and audience marketing.

Hadba invoked a new perspective into audiences when he challenged app designers to think about cloud design first amongst other things during app design. Afterwhich, think about how and where to deploy.

“Design the app and cloud as if it will scale up unlimitedly. Never limit yourself or you will suffer. Microsoft offers public, private and hybrid cloud services because it sees the Asian market as very appealing due to its highest 67 percent adoption rates for cloud computing, which is comparitively higher to 61 percent and 57 percent adoption rate in the US and Europe respectively,” says Hadba.

Those who join the BizSpark program will be entitled to technology access such as necessary software, documentation and white papers, trainings in both technical and business aspects. Startups will also be listed in Microsoft marketing collaterals to be circulated all over the globe.

Another program introduced is BizSpark Plus. Targeting small and promising firms, it provides full hosting worth US$ 60,000 Windows Azure for free, instead of tech access, software (such as MS SQL Server, Visual Studio .NET), training and publication as mentioned earlier under the BizSpark program. Azure, an open and flexible cloud platform, proffers unlimited servers and storage so one can scale their applications to any size based on the needs.

Hadba also mentioned Windows Azure Store where developers can build, submit, and share their codes and apps with other developers. Another store is the Windows 8 Store (widely known as Windows Store) which is currently designed for Windows 8 Beta (also known as Consumer Preview.)

Although the long-awaited Windows Phone store will be available for Indonesians soon, no exact date as given as Microsoft Indonesia declined to disclose the information.

Combining developer platform, tools and ecosystems of the respective developer-centric company, the store which was first announced in September last year offers up to 80 percent revenue share for apps sold. Set the price in local currency and our piece will be available in more than 100 languages. The currency conversions and local tax laws will be handled by the store. Pricing model is flexible and rewards popular apps with a better percentage of the net receipts while delivery options include in-app purchases, trial versions, in-app adv, and third-party transaction services.

Lastly, Hadba highlighted Windows9.com as a site where one can find everything  – videos, samples, design, codes, guides, roadmaps and tutorials – in order to develop a Windows 8 app.

The 3-hour event was wrapped up with showcases from Mobile Game Development Studio Nightspade, KOMPAS app for foodie SajianSedap, City lifestyle directory Urbanesia and a presentation by Agate Studio – all lead by Microsoft Indonesia Developer Evangelist Norman Sasono.

Link to full article

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Microsoft Corporate VP Hadba urges app designers to think of cloud design before anything else

Redmond-based Vice President Walid Abu-Hadba on stage

A  session held on the 15 May for Indonesian local startups, “Microsoft BizSpark Startup Night” witnessed the presence of a special guest speaker, Walid Abu-Hadba.

The Palestinian-born tech executve, who was also the main presenter, is the Redmond-based corporate vice president, developer and platform evangelism group at Microsoft.

In his 40-minute talk, shared about Microsoft Cloud Computing Platform“Windows Azure” and how he leads efforts in building vibrant solutions ecosystems through technical evangelism, community engagement and audience marketing.

Hadba invoked a new perspective into audiences when he challenged app designers to think about cloud design first amongst other things during app design. Afterwhich, think about how and where to deploy.

“Design the app and cloud as if it will scale up unlimitedly. Never limit yourself or you will suffer. Microsoft offers public, private and hybrid cloud services because it sees the Asian market as very appealing due to its highest 67 percent adoption rates for cloud computing, which is comparitively higher to 61 percent and 57 percent adoption rate in the US and Europe respectively,” says Hadba.

Those who join the BizSpark program will be entitled to technology access such as necessary software, documentation and white papers, trainings in both technical and business aspects. Startups will also be listed in Microsoft marketing collaterals to be circulated all over the globe.

Another program introduced is BizSpark Plus. Targeting small and promising firms, it provides full hosting worth US$ 60,000 Windows Azure for free, instead of tech access, software (such as MS SQL Server, Visual Studio .NET), training and publication as mentioned earlier under the BizSpark program. Azure, an open and flexible cloud platform, proffers unlimited servers and storage so one can scale their applications to any size based on the needs.

Hadba also mentioned Windows Azure Store where developers can build, submit, and share their codes and apps with other developers. Another store is the Windows 8 Store (widely known as Windows Store) which is currently designed for Windows 8 Beta (also known as Consumer Preview.)

Although the long-awaited Windows Phone store will be available for Indonesians soon, no exact date as given as Microsoft Indonesia declined to disclose the information.

Combining developer platform, tools and ecosystems of the respective developer-centric company, the store which was first announced in September last year offers up to 80 percent revenue share for apps sold. Set the price in local currency and our piece will be available in more than 100 languages. The currency conversions and local tax laws will be handled by the store. Pricing model is flexible and rewards popular apps with a better percentage of the net receipts while delivery options include in-app purchases, trial versions, in-app adv, and third-party transaction services.

Lastly, Hadba highlighted Windows9.com as a site where one can find everything  – videos, samples, design, codes, guides, roadmaps and tutorials – in order to develop a Windows 8 app.

The 3-hour event was wrapped up with showcases from Mobile Game Development Studio Nightspade, KOMPAS app for foodie SajianSedap, City lifestyle directory Urbanesia and a presentation by Agate Studio – all lead by Microsoft Indonesia Developer Evangelist Norman Sasono.

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Sina Debuts Social Magazine Sina View

Sometimes I am such a fossil, when I want to read news I’ll only refer to news sites, and when I feel like interacting with friends I’ll use SNS apps. And if I incidentally have access to too much irrelevant information while I’m reading news or communicating with friends, I could have been annoyed, just like anyone else will. To make that worse, the current Internet products are all focusing on versatility and multifunction instead of minimalist or simple is beautiful.

screenshot of Web-based Sina View

Recently Sina’s social magazine Sina View (Sina Shiye) just released a new version to ramp up its social features. Launched earlier this year it only runs on iPad and looks similar to the Sina News mobile app. Now it’s also available for mobiles and PCs.

Logging in with you Sina Weibo account, you can subscribe to channels you take a like to. Then you’ll see those channels on the right column, the news feeds appear in the middle and the left colum is saved for friends you followed on Weibo. Here in the right column you can also browse your Weibo content. Since the content I followed on Weibo is quite similar to the channels I subscribed to on the View, it feels like much the same. You can also repost articles to Weibo.

Sina View also launched a new HTML5-powered web version which is visually impressive with animation and simple design. Besides the choice of channels, a fresh function is allowing users to provide their own RSS and it’s also integrated with the Weibo account. It is a good way to engage Weibo users.

According to Sina View team, the new version for iPad will come soon and will still focus on Weibo users’ social connections.

How do you like it?

 

Related posts:

1. Live Blog: Collide – Powering the China Cloud
2. Microsoft China Director: Windows Phone Has Chance To Win in 3–5 Years in Mobile
3. Over 65% Chinese App Developers Are Newcomers To The Business

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Adobe Camp Indonesia to showcase skills of local developers and designers

Adobe User Group Indonesia will organize Adobe Camp Indonesia to raise the awareness of the local Adobe community and introduce attendees to the local user groups.

On the 24th of May 2012, participants of the Adobe Camp Indonesia would hear from a strong line up of 12 speakers, and be exposed to the various Adobe tools through multiple approaches such as demos, hands-on trainings, and team coding sessions, etc. There will also be case studies featuring examples of projects build using Adobe technologies.

The speakers of the event includes:

Tomas Krcha (Adobe Platform Evangelist)
Harrie van der Lubbe (Quince Asia)
Ahmad Fathi Hadi (Adobe Community Champion, Founder & CEO Tandif)
Ade Herdiansyah (Senior Interactive Developer)
Xing Jun Long (CEO Jotter Production)
Bisri Mustova (Founder Parampaa)
Arief Widhiyasa (CEO Agate Studio)
Arie M. Prasetyo (Developer of @GamelanApp)
Tubagus Saepul Anwar (Senior Adobe AIR Developer)
Harry Saputra (UX Designer, JomSocial)
Jesika (RYK Media Creation)
Muhamad Salman Alfarisi (Creative Multimedia)

Details:
Venue : Al-Azhar University Jakarta, Indonesia Jln. Sisingamangaraja, Komplek Mesjid Agung Al-Azhar, Jakarta Selatan, 12110, Indonesia
Date : 24 May 2012, Thursday
Time: 8am – 6pm
Fee : Free

For more details, please visit http://www.amiando.com/adobecampindonesia2012.html

Link to full article

Read More

Adobe Camp Indonesia to showcase skills of local developers and designers

Adobe User Group Indonesia will organize Adobe Camp Indonesia to raise the awareness of the local Adobe community and introduce attendees to the local user groups.

On the 24th of May 2012, participants of the Adobe Camp Indonesia would hear from a strong line up of 12 speakers, and be exposed to the various Adobe tools through multiple approaches such as demos, hands-on trainings, and team coding sessions, etc. There will also be case studies featuring examples of projects build using Adobe technologies.

The speakers of the event includes:

Tomas Krcha (Adobe Platform Evangelist)
Harrie van der Lubbe (Quince Asia)
Ahmad Fathi Hadi (Adobe Community Champion, Founder & CEO Tandif)
Ade Herdiansyah (Senior Interactive Developer)
Xing Jun Long (CEO Jotter Production)
Bisri Mustova (Founder Parampaa)
Arief Widhiyasa (CEO Agate Studio)
Arie M. Prasetyo (Developer of @GamelanApp)
Tubagus Saepul Anwar (Senior Adobe AIR Developer)
Harry Saputra (UX Designer, JomSocial)
Jesika (RYK Media Creation)
Muhamad Salman Alfarisi (Creative Multimedia)

Details:
Venue : Al-Azhar University Jakarta, Indonesia Jln. Sisingamangaraja, Komplek Mesjid Agung Al-Azhar, Jakarta Selatan, 12110, Indonesia
Date : 24 May 2012, Thursday
Time: 8am – 6pm
Fee : Free

For more details, please visit http://www.amiando.com/adobecampindonesia2012.html

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Klik-Eat, Indonesia’s online food delivery portal, talks about doubling up as a B2B and a B2C company

Klik-eat Logo Photo: Klik-eat

Have you ever been caught in the following situations?

“It’s raining outside, I don’t feel like going out for dinner”

“Exam crunch time! I need food to pull me through my revision at night!”

And the most familiar feeling that we get when we think of ordering  in, “What? MacDonald’s, Pizza, KFC again?”

Not sure about most people but I sure have been through all three situations. I understand how frustrating it is to only have those few food delivery options on days when we are all too lazy to get our butts off to dine out or cook in. I decide to talk to Michael Saputra of  Klik-Eat.com, an Indonesian startup, to find out more about their online food delivery portal.

Can you share with us how Klik-Eat came about?

The idea came to light when some of us were hanging out in one of the apartments in Sudirman area (one of the central business districts in Jakarta). It was dinner time and we had planned to go get some food. We looked out the window and saw gridlocked traffic everywhere.

Not wanting to be stuck in the traffic for hours, we decided to have the food delivered to our apartment. Bored with the usual McDonalds, KFC and Pizza Hut, we decided to get delivery from non-fast food type restaurants. We went to google and started searching for restaurants that would deliver to our apartment. We managed to find a lot of telephone numbers, and started calling them one by one.

That was the moment when we realized how difficult it was to find and actually get in contact with the restaurants to order food. In addition to that, not all restaurants provide delivery services. Ordering food delivery shouldn’t be this difficult, and that’s why we created Klik-Eat.com.

Klik-Eat founders. Photo: Klik-Eat

Unlike most businesses which are either B2B or B2C, Klik-Eat deals with both customers and  businesses (i.e., restaurant partners). Can you share with us some of  the main challenges you encountered when dealing with both sides? And also, how did your team coped with these challenges?

You’re right on. Handling the B2B and B2C sides of the business requires a two-pronged approach. And that is also how we divide our marketing responsibilities between Andrew and I.

Since the performance of both aspects are highly dependent on each other (customers will be disappointed if there  are not enough restaurant options, meanwhile, restaurants will also be disappointed if there are not enough orders) it is crucial that we get this balance in growing our business.

For the B2B side (getting restaurant partners) some of the main challenges are:

• Meeting the decision maker and dealing with the bureaucracy in the management decision
• Since most of the traditional restaurant owners are older, it takes some effort to break their conventional thinking and embrace the online ordering system

How do we deal with this? Persistence. Understand the needs of the restaurants. And, be flexible on a restaurant to restaurant basis.

For the B2C side, some of the main challenges are finding the ideal and most cost effective user acquisition channel. We believe we had an early start and we will use that advantage to grow our user base.

The Klik-Eat team. Photo: Klik-Eat

Currently, Klik-Eat is only based in Jakarta. What are some of the plans you guys have in the pipeline?

As of right now, we are concentrating on our main target market –  local office workers and apartment residents. So, we will go all out in Jakarta for the short and medium term.

Other features that are in our pipeline includes mobile site or application development and further enhancing our order taking ability from multiple sources such as internet, telephone, BBM, IM Chat, website live chat, mobile site.

What would you mainly be looking for at Echelon 2012 Startup Marketplace?

We’re mainly looking for investments and strategic partnership to boost our growth and revenue.

Klik-Eat will be exhibiting at Echelon 2012 Startup Marketplace. The team pitched their product at the Indonesia Satellite in April.

Link to full article

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Klik-Eat, Indonesia’s online food delivery portal, talks about doubling up as a B2B and a B2C company

Klik-eat Logo Photo: Klik-eat

Have you ever been caught in the following situations?

“It’s raining outside, I don’t feel like going out for dinner”

“Exam crunch time! I need food to pull me through my revision at night!”

And the most familiar feeling that we get when we think of ordering  in, “What? MacDonald’s, Pizza, KFC again?”

Not sure about most people but I sure have been through all three situations. I understand how frustrating it is to only have those few food delivery options on days when we are all too lazy to get our butts off to dine out or cook in. I decide to talk to Michael Saputra of  Klik-Eat.com, an Indonesian startup, to find out more about their online food delivery portal.

Can you share with us how Klik-Eat came about?

The idea came to light when some of us were hanging out in one of the apartments in Sudirman area (one of the central business districts in Jakarta). It was dinner time and we had planned to go get some food. We looked out the window and saw gridlocked traffic everywhere.

Not wanting to be stuck in the traffic for hours, we decided to have the food delivered to our apartment. Bored with the usual McDonalds, KFC and Pizza Hut, we decided to get delivery from non-fast food type restaurants. We went to google and started searching for restaurants that would deliver to our apartment. We managed to find a lot of telephone numbers, and started calling them one by one.

That was the moment when we realized how difficult it was to find and actually get in contact with the restaurants to order food. In addition to that, not all restaurants provide delivery services. Ordering food delivery shouldn’t be this difficult, and that’s why we created Klik-Eat.com.

Klik-Eat founders. Photo: Klik-Eat

Unlike most businesses which are either B2B or B2C, Klik-Eat deals with both customers and  businesses (i.e., restaurant partners). Can you share with us some of  the main challenges you encountered when dealing with both sides? And also, how did your team coped with these challenges?

You’re right on. Handling the B2B and B2C sides of the business requires a two-pronged approach. And that is also how we divide our marketing responsibilities between Andrew and I.

Since the performance of both aspects are highly dependent on each other (customers will be disappointed if there  are not enough restaurant options, meanwhile, restaurants will also be disappointed if there are not enough orders) it is crucial that we get this balance in growing our business.

For the B2B side (getting restaurant partners) some of the main challenges are:

• Meeting the decision maker and dealing with the bureaucracy in the management decision
• Since most of the traditional restaurant owners are older, it takes some effort to break their conventional thinking and embrace the online ordering system

How do we deal with this? Persistence. Understand the needs of the restaurants. And, be flexible on a restaurant to restaurant basis.

For the B2C side, some of the main challenges are finding the ideal and most cost effective user acquisition channel. We believe we had an early start and we will use that advantage to grow our user base.

The Klik-Eat team. Photo: Klik-Eat

Currently, Klik-Eat is only based in Jakarta. What are some of the plans you guys have in the pipeline?

As of right now, we are concentrating on our main target market –  local office workers and apartment residents. So, we will go all out in Jakarta for the short and medium term.

Other features that are in our pipeline includes mobile site or application development and further enhancing our order taking ability from multiple sources such as internet, telephone, BBM, IM Chat, website live chat, mobile site.

What would you mainly be looking for at Echelon 2012 Startup Marketplace?

We’re mainly looking for investments and strategic partnership to boost our growth and revenue.

Klik-Eat will be exhibiting at Echelon 2012 Startup Marketplace. The team pitched their product at the Indonesia Satellite in April.

Link to full article

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Ex-Director of Cookpad, Yongfook, builds Tinytrunk to help SEA independent fashion brands go online

Jon Yongfook (Founder of Tinytrunk)

Yongfook is a serial web entrepreneur. He was previously a Director of Glamour Sales, a high-end commerce  flash site with operations in Japan and China, which was funded up to Series-C. He was a consultant for Dentsu, Avenue A and Razorfish, and sold his first Internet company, Nibbledish, a food recipe social network. His last position held was Director of International Product at Cookpad, Japan’s largest recipe site. Jon has more than a decade of  of experience in development and marketing for consumer internet, e-commerce and mobile, with professional experiences in London, Tokyo and Singapore.

Yongfook is currently working on his new startup, Tinytrunk, an online shopping neighborhood of Southeast Asia’s best independent retailers, fashion labels and merchants.

With a flamboyant personality and a hint of fashionista in him, Jon is not your typical startup guy. He is part of a panel discussion, “Process for Success: A Discussion with 5 Regional Startup Incubators” at Echelon 2012 this June.

Tell us more about TinyTrunk and how you got started on the product.

Tinytrunk started in February 2012 as a simple peer-to-peer marketplace where you could sign up, post an item to sell and easily accept payment via PayPal. I built it because I just wanted a simple way to “hook up a photo with a paypal button”.

Quickly though, I received demand from other types of sellers such as retailers and fashion labels who wanted to use the platform but in a more organized manner and had ideas for features they wanted.

The direction I’m steering Tinytrunk in now is a shopping destination for the best of Southeast Asia’s independent retailers, designers and merchants – a place for them to easily set up a shop and be surrounded by their peers. Kind of the “Anti-Gmarket”, which focuses on generic, low-price goods and I find hard to navigate and generally unpleasant to use.

Jon Yongfook (Founder of Tinytrunk)

You were previously with Glamour Sales in Japan, what was your main role there and key takeaways that is helping you with TinyTrunk now?

Glamour Sales is the No.2 online destination in Japan for luxury retail (I lived in Japan for 10 years before deciding to move to Singapore). I joined as Web Director back in 2009 very early on in the company’s life and assumed responsibility for basically all the online activities, both development and marketing related.

We went from 0 users to around half a million by the time I had left and were doing $XX million in revenue annually. The company is still going strong and I’m still an advisor. My key takeaways from my two years there were that e-commerce is not really about fancy technology stuff at all. It’s about customer acquisition, marketing to those customers, and fulfilling your promise to those customers. Ideally, I want to make those three things easier for all my tenants on Tinytrunk.

What is your opinion on the tech startup environment in Singapore and how can it be better?

I’ve only been here a year, but one thing I’ll say is that I’m very impressed with how many people I met who *want* to do a startup. I think that’s a good start for any growing startup scene. It’s very different to living in Japan where you rarely meet young people who have ideas that they want to build into a company.

I would like to see more startups thinking regionally though. The Southeast Asian market is around 600 million. It’s fragmented as hell but it’s closer to home and it’s underserved by Silicon Valley startups. Any local startup that can crack Southeast Asia or parts of it will reap significant rewards. I still think there’s tons of opportunities to be explored in B2B2C in Southeast Asia, Groupon and Airbnb-style businesses were just the beginning.

Jon Yongfook (Founder of Tinytrunk)

As both a programmer and a designer, what do you think are some of the key elements that make or break a startup?

I’m a hybrid marketing hacker and product hacker (Ruby on Rails). One thing I’ll say – don’t forget about sales. You need good inbound marketing sure. You need great design and beautifully-written, maintainable code, sure. But don’t forget that you also need someone whose sole job it is to go round town knocking on doors, getting people to sign on the dotted line.

I’ve worked with people who are very good at that and I feel they are a key player in moving the businesses beyond the early product development phase.

Jon Yongfook (Founder of  TinyTrunks) is one of the awesome speakers at Echelon 2012. This tech conference is a two-day, double-track event on 11 and 12 June 2012 with over 1,100 delegates, a demo pit of up to 50 regional startups per day and various workshops. Get your tickets now!

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Ex-Director of Cookpad, Yongfook, builds Tinytrunk to help SEA independent fashion brands go online

Jon Yongfook (Founder of Tinytrunk)

Yongfook is a serial web entrepreneur. He was previously a Director of Glamour Sales, a high-end commerce  flash site with operations in Japan and China, which was funded up to Series-C. He was a consultant for Dentsu, Avenue A and Razorfish, and sold his first Internet company, Nibbledish, a food recipe social network. His last position held was Director of International Product at Cookpad, Japan’s largest recipe site. Jon has more than a decade of  of experience in development and marketing for consumer internet, e-commerce and mobile, with professional experiences in London, Tokyo and Singapore.

Yongfook is currently working on his new startup, Tinytrunk, an online shopping neighborhood of Southeast Asia’s best independent retailers, fashion labels and merchants.

With a flamboyant personality and a hint of fashionista in him, Jon is not your typical startup guy. He is part of a panel discussion, “Process for Success: A Discussion with 5 Regional Startup Incubators” at Echelon 2012 this June.

Tell us more about TinyTrunk and how you got started on the product.

Tinytrunk started in February 2012 as a simple peer-to-peer marketplace where you could sign up, post an item to sell and easily accept payment via PayPal. I built it because I just wanted a simple way to “hook up a photo with a paypal button”.

Quickly though, I received demand from other types of sellers such as retailers and fashion labels who wanted to use the platform but in a more organized manner and had ideas for features they wanted.

The direction I’m steering Tinytrunk in now is a shopping destination for the best of Southeast Asia’s independent retailers, designers and merchants – a place for them to easily set up a shop and be surrounded by their peers. Kind of the “Anti-Gmarket”, which focuses on generic, low-price goods and I find hard to navigate and generally unpleasant to use.

Jon Yongfook (Founder of Tinytrunk)

You were previously with Glamour Sales in Japan, what was your main role there and key takeaways that is helping you with TinyTrunk now?

Glamour Sales is the No.2 online destination in Japan for luxury retail (I lived in Japan for 10 years before deciding to move to Singapore). I joined as Web Director back in 2009 very early on in the company’s life and assumed responsibility for basically all the online activities, both development and marketing related.

We went from 0 users to around half a million by the time I had left and were doing $XX million in revenue annually. The company is still going strong and I’m still an advisor. My key takeaways from my two years there were that e-commerce is not really about fancy technology stuff at all. It’s about customer acquisition, marketing to those customers, and fulfilling your promise to those customers. Ideally, I want to make those three things easier for all my tenants on Tinytrunk.

What is your opinion on the tech startup environment in Singapore and how can it be better?

I’ve only been here a year, but one thing I’ll say is that I’m very impressed with how many people I met who *want* to do a startup. I think that’s a good start for any growing startup scene. It’s very different to living in Japan where you rarely meet young people who have ideas that they want to build into a company.

I would like to see more startups thinking regionally though. The Southeast Asian market is around 600 million. It’s fragmented as hell but it’s closer to home and it’s underserved by Silicon Valley startups. Any local startup that can crack Southeast Asia or parts of it will reap significant rewards. I still think there’s tons of opportunities to be explored in B2B2C in Southeast Asia, Groupon and Airbnb-style businesses were just the beginning.

Jon Yongfook (Founder of Tinytrunk)

As both a programmer and a designer, what do you think are some of the key elements that make or break a startup?

I’m a hybrid marketing hacker and product hacker (Ruby on Rails). One thing I’ll say – don’t forget about sales. You need good inbound marketing sure. You need great design and beautifully-written, maintainable code, sure. But don’t forget that you also need someone whose sole job it is to go round town knocking on doors, getting people to sign on the dotted line.

I’ve worked with people who are very good at that and I feel they are a key player in moving the businesses beyond the early product development phase.

Jon Yongfook (Founder of  TinyTrunks) is one of the awesome speakers at Echelon 2012. This tech conference is a two-day, double-track event on 11 and 12 June 2012 with over 1,100 delegates, a demo pit of up to 50 regional startups per day and various workshops. Get your tickets now!

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The Facebook Effect on China's Renren

It was little more than a year ago that China’s Facebook, Renren, went public on the NYSE. Now the spotlight is on Facebook and its debut on NASDAQ.

There’s debate over Renren really is a China Facebook, like Baidu is a Chinese version of Google. Certainly there is a world of difference. Facebook has not entered China while Baidu competed with Google for several years in China.

Renren is the top social networking site in China, while Facebook is a leader is just about every market globally except China. With a market as huge as China’s and with so much market potential for games, social networking and social commerce, Renren’s turf is China.

Facebook likely faces a challenging time if it does enter China. Keep reading this post at Forbes.

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Facebook Poll : 36% of you believe that the value will go down

We recently announced a Facebook poll on Pluggd.in and here is what our readers think about it:

- Only ~13% believe that the value will go up by 100% from its IPO price

- 23.5% believe that the value will go up by 20-50% in a year timeframe.

- ~26% seem to believe that the value will go down by 20-50%

- 10% believe it to be much lower than the IPO price.

- 27.3% is not at all interested in Facebook IPO hoopla- they are off to build their own startup!

In short, ~38% believe that the stock price will go up., while 36% think otherwise.

What’s your opinion? Is the hoopla around Facebook IPO justified?

And  in this context – here’s a funny one – a spoofed “letter from Mark Zuckerberg” – doing the rounds:

“For years, you’ve wasted your time on Facebook.  Now here’s your chance to waste your money on it, too.

Tomorrow is Facebook’s IPO, and I know what some of you are thinking.  How will Facebook be any different from the dot-com bubble of the early 2000’s?

….”

Update

Facebook’s IPO stock price is being reported at $38. Which means that over a third believe it’ll be in the $19-$20 range in a year’s time!! All we can do, of course, is wait and watch.

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The Facebook Effect on China's Renren

What impact will Facebook have on Renren?
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Infographic: Tencent Restructure 2012′

Tencent today officially announced its restructure plan to reorganized the heavy-weighted company into six business groups, including TEG (Technical Engineering Group), SNG (Social Networking Group), CDG (Corporate Development Group), IEG (Interactive Entertainment Group), MIG (Mobile Internet Group), and OMG (Online Media Group), which again are consisted of numerous departments and offices, the infographic pictured below could help you better understand what is going on with the move and what the Shenzhen-based Internet juggernaut is up to after this.

Related posts:

1. Mecox Lane joins T-shirt Price War with VANCL, MetersBonwe, Uniqlo
2. Live Blog: Collide – Powering the China Cloud
3. CDC Corp. Filed for Bankruptcy Protection, Rise and Fall of the First China Concepts Stock

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Startup Communities in Indonesia [#StartupAsia Preview]

A tech ecosystem usually consists of startup founders, angel investors, VCs, government, universities, media, and communities. What often happens is that most people focus only on the entrepreneurs and the ones who invests in them — angels or venture capitals. But local communities are where all of these stakeholders meet, and there are more than a few startups being born or getting investment out of such meetups.

We have at least one strong startup community in each of the big cities across Indonesia, starting with StartupLokal in Jakarta, FOWAB in Bandung, Bancakan 2.0 and Gamelan in Jogjakarta, SuWec in Surabaya, and Stasion in Malang. They are holding regular meetups periodically to give updates about what is happening in the ecosystem and quite often they have a session to showcase newest product launches.

We will have five initiators from these communities talking on stage on the first day of Startup Asia Jakarta 2012:

1. StartupLokal

StartupLokal community is a community that based in Jakarta which acts as a melting pot, gathering start-up founders, digital industry enthusiasts, investors, and media, giving them a chance to collaborate in one way or another. This community started in April 2010 and has been growing since then. The StartupLokal community held Jakarta-based regular monthly meetups, in total 25 up until this month. It also has launched Project Eden, a startup incubator/accelerator aiming to provide pre-seed investment.

2. Bancakan

Founded back in February 2010, Bancakan is a gathering for all Jogjakarta startups and developers. They have already held more than nine meet-ups to date. It also manages Hackerspace YK, inspired by Bandung’s Hackerspace by FOWAB. Bancakan is Javanese term referring to ‘gathering’ or ‘eating together’

3. FOWAB

Bandung in West Java, Indonesia’s third largest populated city, is well-known as a creative city. It is also a high-tech city, as Insitut Teknologi Bandung, arguably Indonesia’s finest technological campus, is there. It’s not surprising to know there’s a creative tech community in Bandung too. FOWAB is community for creative people who get connected through the Internet in Bandung, so in a sense FOWAB is not exclusively for IT startup people only. FOWAB is for everyone from the creative industry who has the same vision to make Indonesia a better country and a better place to live. Since its first meetup in February 2010, FOWAB has held eight events. It has also created shared workspaces for creative workers named Hackerspace Bandung. It has held Geek Fest, a SXSW-like conference at the end of March 2012 and plans to make it an annual event.

4. Stasion

Stasion is a Malang, East Java-based local startup community that aims to build synergies among the members who work in digital business and technology. Founded in March of 2011, they have so far held four meet-ups and three public workshops. ‘Singo Edan’ is the term often referred to Arema FC, Malang’s beloved football club. Lately Malang is making a name for its developers after some hackathon/developer days that have been held there.

5. SuWec

Surabaya, East Java, is Indonesia’s second most populated city after Jakarta. So it’s expected that this city will have several tech communities as well. SuWec is a community for web industry practitioners folks in Surabaya. It helps and connects like minded people to collaborate and work together. Since its founding in September of 2009, SuWec has been a regular monthly event.

Not only will our speakers talk in depth about what their community is and what are they doing to help startups in their respective cities, but they will also discuss the advantages and disadvantages of being in their city. They will also speak to the difference between startups in these cities, and their plans to help the Indonesian startup ecosystem.

Interested to know more? Get your tickets to Startup Asia Jakarta 2012! Or if you have an interesting product or idea that you believe can wow the judges and audience, please register your startup for the Startup Arena competition and win US$10,000!

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