Another week has gone by and here’s a compilation of the startups that we’ve covered. For tips and stories suggestions, feel free to email us at editors@techinasia.com. Alternatively, you can submit tips here and/or your startup here. Enjoy!
I Want to See a Dentist, as its name suggests, is a dental appointment booking website that is based in China. Presently, this online service is only available in Shenzhen and users are able to quickly and freely book dental appointments with virtually any dentist in the city.
iTajPlus app, aimed at travelers visiting India, was created by a group of Indian and expat backpacker types who want to provide a hi-tech way for people to explore the historic treasure that is the Taj Mahal at Agra.
Based in Tokyo, Language Cloud lets users manage classes online. It includes features like announcements, assignments, and flashcards in a very friendly interface for students and teachers.
Malaysia-based startup ChopChop allows users to engage in cashless transactions and keep track of their rewards on-the-go without the hassle of holding all those loyalty-cards stuffed inside their wallet.
Indian flash sales site 99Labels has expanded this month with the launch of 9Rasa.com, which is a more conventional e-commerce site that specializes in traditional-style clothes, jewelry, and home decorations.
Thinking of cooking at home, but you haven’t any fresh products or ingredients? RumahSegar is a new e-commerce site that takes care of your needs, letting you order all you need from home.
Previously available only in Japan, Nana has now officially launched a global version of its iPhone app. This app lets users to sing, play songs, and collaborate with other users on the Nana platform.
The startup reckons that Hornet’s success in China as a flirty hook-up app is partly societal, as “gay culture is understated and a private affair” in mainland China.
TradeHero is a mobile app that allows users to trade virtual money based on real-world stock market data. But this isn’t just another simulated stock market game; click and read on. It’s epic.
That’s all for this week, folks. (See last week’s list here). For our full coverage of the hottest and most innovative startups in the region, you can click here or subscribe to our Asia startups RSS feed. For tips and news, sent us a note via editors[at]techinasia.com – thanks!
Here goes our weekly magazine of curated stories from around the world. In this edition: Apple and HTC settle a patent dispute. Why Samsung builds phones that outsell iPhones. Secrets of Facebooks legendary hackathons revealed. What every designer working for a startup needs to know and more.
Inc.
Apple and HTC settle all outstanding litigation: Putting an end to a long drawn patent war, Apple and HTC have agreed to a 10 year lisencing deal. The lisence extends to current and future patents held by both parties. Apple sued HTC in 2010, accusing the Taiwanese handset company of infringing on the iPhone maker’s patented technology. Recently, the The iPhone maker won a $1.05 billion verdict against Samsung in August, while litigation against Motorola has failed to produce any decisive wins.Read more here.
Why Only Samsung Builds Phones That Outsell iPhones: For the first time in years, one single handset model has reportedly outsold the iPhone. Strategy Analytics says that more Samsung Galaxy S III phones than Apple iPhone 4S handsets were sold in third quarter of this year. Samsung Electronics moved 18 million such handsets, while Apple sold 16.2 million during the three-month period, says the research firm. It should be noted that Samsung’s figures represent shipments, not actual sales, but there’s a bigger point to be made here: Samsung is currently the only company that can even come close to competing with Apple when it comes to smartphones. Read more here.
Newnewworld
Secrets Of Facebook’s Legendary Hackathons Revealed: I sent out an email saying, “Hey, I’m going to get some Chinese food and hack all night.” It was super successful, and most of the company was there. The next day Mark Zuckerberg came to my desk and said, “That was awesome.” So over time, it became a thing, where every six to eight weeks I asked if people wanted to hack. Meet Pedram Keyani, the coder behind the nocturnal events that shake up Facebook. Read more here.
Inside eBay Billionaire Pierre Omidyar’s Battle To End Human Trafficking: In the upcoming Issue of Forbes, Clare O’connor writes: Pierre Omidyar looked out over Nepal’s Kathmandu Valley this past February, scanning the horizon with his camera in hand. All the billionaire eBay founder could see for miles were huge, belching chimneys taller than houses and mountains of red bricks drying in the winter sun. Kids of 12 or 13 lugged bricks on their backs to and from these ovens, 80 pounds at a time. Ninety percent of the workers here in Bhaktapur, the heart of Nepal’s brick sector, are slaves. Day after day they incur more debt to the traffickers who found them these jobs and hovels to live in nearby. Read more here.
Entrepreneuring
What every designer working in a startup needs to know: At the core of any startup is a passion to satisfy unmet needs. At the core of a designer there’s a passion to craft a bold vision for the future. But being a designer and being a designer in a startup are two very different things. After working at IDEO for about five years, Elle Luna, took the leap into a startup. Luna, the lead designer at Mailbox shares insights on how its like to be a designer at a startup. Read more here.
Bloomberg Businessweek has a great section on Incubators and accelerators this week. Something everyone in the startup ecosystem must read. There are stories on how there are incubators for almost every business and how the number– and variety– of business incubators is on the rise. Little known until recent years, they have become many startups’ ticket to success, writes the magazine. There is a podcast, a slideshow and a video besides a bunch of articles. Check it out here.
Technicolor
How Brainless Slime Molds Redefine Intelligence: Scientists have found that slime molds are much smarter than they look…They can solve mazes, mimic the layout of man-made transportation networks and choose the healthiest food from a diverse menu—and all this without a brain or nervous system.
THE MIND IS “TURBULENT, STRONG, OBSTINATE”, cries Arjuna dolefully in the Bhagavad Gita. Obstinate in the face of efforts to control it, and to understand it. The two obstinacies are not unrelated. The culmination of the European tradition of inquiry into the mind—ranging from Plato to Freud—is the contention that there is such a thing as the unconscious mind, a thing to whose secrets the conscious mind is not privy. The unconscious will not yield easily, certainly not to introspection or some other simple effort of the will. But that is not to say it will yield to nothing. Read more on Neuroscience’s recent attempts to understand the mind written by Nakul Krishna in The Caravan.
Gadgetvice
Dear Android: It Is Now Perfectly Okay To Go Out And Do Donuts In The Parking Lot writes Dan Lyons. You know what blows my mind? Despite these numbers, tech bloggers keep talking about Apple as a market leader and portraying Android as a plucky underdog that’s trying to catch up. Are you kidding me? Look, when three out of four phones sold worldwide run your operating system, I think it’s safe to declare victory. Read more here.
Illiterate Ethiopian kids hack Motorola Xoom: About five months ago, OLPC Project started a little experiment. They chose a village in Ethiopia where the literacy rate was nearly 0% and decided to drop off a bunch of Motorola Xooms there. The One Laptop Per Child project started as a way of delivering technology and resources to schools in countries with little or no education infrastructure, using inexpensive computers to improve traditional curricula. On the tablets, there was custom software that was meant to teach kids how to read. This experiment began earlier this year. Read how it went here.
Big picture
India is an open, tolerant country. So why does liberalism not flourish there? Asks The Economist: The hoary old question for China is whether, as it gets richer and more capitalist, liberal democracy will inevitably follow. In India it is the obverse: after 65 years of liberal democracy, is a richer, more capitalist economy now bound to emerge? Gurcharan Das, once chief executive of Procter & Gamble in India and now a columnist and author, argues that it must, but it will need a political movement to drive it on. His country’s progress is stalling after two decades of rapid change. India desperately needs a fiercer push for liberal capitalism. Read more here.
Lifehack
How to Devise Passwords That Drive Hackers Away: Not long after I began writing about cybersecurity, I became a paranoid caricature of my former self. It’s hard to maintain peace of mind when hackers remind me every day, all day, just how easy it is to steal my personal data, writes Nicole Perlroth. She describes how ridiculously easy it is to get hacked and goes on to share some tips on how to drive hackers away. Read here.
More of our bloggers than ever before have emerged from their basements to give you their pick for the title of top news story of the week. Perhaps the biggest shocker was China’s Great Firewall apparently testing out a total Google shutdown – though thankfully that turned out to last for not much more than 12 hours.
Rumour has it that WeChat is in action again. It’s amazing to see how active the app is in trying to bring new services to its users. If the Tencent acquisition of TongCard is true, it would be really fun to see how rivals would react to Tencent’s leap into the coupons and local deals market via its social app.
With a Party Congress in session for the first time since China really embraced the internet age, we have gotten to see how the government deals with information control during such a sensitive time. Turns out, they deal with it by mostly just shutting stuff down. Google and Gmail vanished from China’s internet on Friday evening local time, but was mostly restored by this morning. But the web is still being interfered with very badly right now. Will it go back to ‘normal’ later? We’ll have to wait and see…
In what was a pretty big week for social games in Japan, this was perhaps the biggest news. Cygames is a subsidiary of CyberAgent, and the publisher of the hit battle card game Rage of Bahamut. And this move by DeNA should lead to more collaboration and cooperation for the two Japanese gaming powerhouses moving forward.
After the sucess of Xiaomi’s Android-based phones, the upstart Chinese gadget maker revealed today that it’s about to make a streaming video box that’ll hook up to TVs. Hopefully it’ll be like the Apple TV, except running MIUI-themed Android – and a lot more open to new apps and hacks. Can’t wait to see the real thing next week.
It has been a long time since I have written about a startup so passionately. I can’t remember when it happened last. Anyway, TradeHero has pure epicness in it. It has just launched (though its app it still awaiting Apple approval) and I’m positive that the idea will be well received. It may need to make some changes along the way, but the general concept should remain. Click on to read about its epicness.
Enricko: Is this the end of the era for Blackberry smartphone dominance in Indonesia? The company’s exclusive Blackberry Messenger (BBM) package deal is facing its biggest adversary in the form of similar packaged data deals for emerging Android-based chat apps. I wonder what RIM’s next move will be besides going into fashion?
Minghao: Blackberry has became an essential communication device in Indonesia due to its hugely popular BBM service. With strong competitors in the likes of WeChat, Kakao Talk, Line, and Chaton wanting a slice of this market, it will be interesting to see how RIM will innovate its messenger service – and its platform – to stay in the lead.
Foxconn has been infamous for quite some time, with a spate of suicides and then labour abuse cases at a large number of their factories in China. It certainly comes as a huge surprise to hear rumors of the company planning to set up manufacturing plants in America since labor costs in the States are much higher than in China. Such a geographic shift would surely also come with a different manufacturing model, such as greater mechanization. Though it’s just an unconfirmed rumour for now, let’s see how this story progresses.
Thanks for dropping by again this week! For other ways of reading us, perhaps try our tailored RSS feeds, or find us within the Flipboard or Google Currents mobile apps.
Facebook is the ultimate forum to get your brand out there. And a revolutionary, attractive cover page is the way to start. The first thing on your page to catch your customer’s eye is your cover page, and an appealing cover gets them involved enough to check out your whole page. So, how do you make your cover page charming and gripping enough to captivate an audience? In this article we bring to you 5 valuable tips to take your cover page to the next level. For a better understanding, we seek aid from top brands’ cover pages.
Tell a Quick Story
Five seconds is all you have to grab the attention of a customer, tell them what your brand has to offer and satisfy them enough to like your page. This is accomplished only when your cover page tells a quick story. With a single glance at the Overgo Studio Page, you’re immediately aware of what they’re all about – marketing. This invites all those interested in marketing to like your page. With the perfect blend of crisp words and pictures, it’s easy to get your message across to your audience, as we see with Overgo Studio.
Be Creative and Simple
With a simple, creative and charming image, Dropbox successfully portrays what their brand is all about. The customer knows that they deal with storing files, and all this using no words. People scouting Facebook pages don’t usually have the time or patience to read a lot. Therefore, a well crafted picture is always more effective than a long, explanatory sentence. This image also contains the element of fun and accessibility, which is always more appealing than boring, services explained is complicated sentences.
Engage your customers
Customer reaction is only purpose of brands’ Facebook pages, and what better way to achieve this than engaging them personally? Verizon Wireless has emerged victorious is customer engagement.
They get their fans involved in deciding the cover of their page, and update the cover daily to different pictures sent by customers themselves. To take it one step further, they give the sender credit for his specific cover with his details and a picture. Thus, more customers are encouraged to participate in this exciting program. What more can a Verizon fan ask for?
New Day – New Cover
Getting your audience to like your page is the first step. Once that is accomplished, how do you retain their attention? Your cover is the ultimate answer. Lawyers.com incorporates every update in their cover page. This way, their activity is promoted and fans are drawn in regularly. Thus, this is another productive step towards publicizing your brand’s latest activities.
A Cover for Every Occasion
To end on a superb note, we use one of India’s leading brands as an example. Airtel’s cover page always changes with each new occasion. This shows fans that Airtel celebrates every occasion alongside its customers. Additionally, this is effective in informing customers about their seasonal schemes and festive promotions.
That’s all Folks! Any feedback or information regarding Facebook cover pages is welcome and much appreciated. If you have an exceptionally creative cover page, please share it as a comment and we will try to feature it in our follow-up blog.
Good startup ideas aren’t so easy to come by in Singapore. So here’s one I really like: it’s called TradeHero, a mobile app that allows users to trade virtual money based on real-world stock market data. But this isn’t just another simulated stock market game; read on.
In some ways, OK, it’s a game. But this game brings in loads of entertainment and money-making opportunities. Co-founders Dinesh Bhatia and Dominic Morris say that monetization of TradeHero comes naturally with the game. They call it monetizing “information and reputation.” How it works is that folks will trade stocks based on real-world data. The greater return on investment (ROI) you bring in, the more reputable you will be.
Revenue
When you’ve got a good reputation, your every buy and sell signal or comment becomes valuable, and it costs $1.99 per month for another TradeHero user to follow your trade movement. Users who subscribe to your feed will get in-app push messages on every trade you make. That $1.99 will be shared 50:50 between you and TradeHero after Apple’s 30 percent cut. So in absolute dollars, you receive about $0.70 for every user who subscribes to your trade movements.
So why the hell would people pay? Simple. In trading, information is key, especially information from someone who has consistently done well in the market. This information is also highly relevant because the ROI made on TradeHero is based on real-world stock data. So theoretically, if the trades are executed in real-world markets, he/she should make real money too. At just $1.99 per month, the information you get from TradeHero is an extremely good value for the money.
The revenue math looks great for the founders too. If 50,000 follows were generated among TradeHero users, the startup could make a healthy $35,000 a month in revenue. Reputable TradeHero users can also earn while they trade. Note that this is just one of the many value-added services which TradeHero could potentially offer.
Mobile
TradeHero is a mobile-only virtual trading platform because, according to co-founder Dinesh, that’s the best way to monetize intention. He explained:
Everything is on mobile. Because you get the in-app notification instantly. With the app store you can actually monetize intention straight away. You can’t monetize intention straight away on the web. You got to go through several steps including taking out your wallet, pulling out your credit card, entering your name, credit number, CCV number, expiry date, and maybe you made an error and by that time you’ve lost intention.
In contrast, using in-app payments is faster and more direct – all you need is just your App Store password to making an actual payment. Mobile allows payments to be made swiftly while the consumer’s purchasing intention is still fresh.
The TradeHero app has been submitted to Apple’s App Store for approval and should be launched soon. So stay tuned, financial geeks! Despite being a work in progress, Dinesh and Dominic have received SGD$600,000 in convertible debt notes from The Network Fund (TNF) under the TIS scheme. TradeHero’s concept sounds great so I look forward to seeing how users will react to the product.
Founders
TradeHero CEO Dinesh has 16 years of IT ventures in mobile/online/TV under his belt founding Iternu.net, BowTie, Wireless Intellect Labs along the way. He also has experience wearing the investor hat at Matrix Partners, Vickers Venture Capital, and more. Meanwhile, his partner and CTO Dominic has 14 years of experience in engineering and management positions at Microsoft, Citigroup, Deutsche Bank, Royal Bank of Scotland, and Standard Chartered Bank. The team now has eight people including the two founders.
There are four engineers and designers, one business development person, one intern, and one legal person. The legal person, as Dinesh explains, “is generating intellectual property (IP).” The company has two patents pending.
TradeHero is now looking for investors for its next financing round, so be sure to hit them up if this startup interests you.
1. Ghumakkad Shashtra by Rahul Sankrityayan: The first one I am recommending was originally written in Hindi. But has been translated across several languages. Might be difficult to find, but if you manage to find it, give it a read. The author gives a very serious definition of “ghumakkad” and talks at length about how to be a “ghumakkad”. If you could replaced the word “ghumakkad” with “entrepreneur” in the book, the book writte in 1949 will still make a lot of sense in 2012. It is about doing things that nobody else around you is doing, not giving a damn about the society and finally how to be a “jugaadoo” and actually do it!
2. The Innovator’s Dilemma by Clayton M. Christensen: This is the only business book on this list and funny thing is that it is written for the managers in big companies discussing how could they avoid assault from startups. The reason entrepreneurs should read this book is that it gives a practical analysis of when startups manage to make their way into an industry and it goes beyond the cliches like established players can not handle technological onslaught. Some very practical insights.
I find history and astronomy to be two humbling things in life. One tells us how small we are on the scale of time, the other tells us the same on the scale of space. History has a lot to teach us. Unfortunately the way it is taught in our schools, it becomes just a chronicle of events. A different look at history can be very instructive. The next three books can help us do that.
3. Guns, Germs and Steel by Jared Diamond: The book looks at why certain civilizations survive and others do not. It debunks the superficial theories about intelligence and development and digs deeper into the issue until he gets to the environmental reasons. One might agree or disagree with his theories, but the thought process is must to look into. It can force us into some critical thinking.
4. Glimpses of World History Jawahar Lal Nehru: This book could replace our history textbooks and we’d come out with a better appreciation of our history and society.
5. Cuckold by Kiran Nagarkar: It is a historical fiction. Its protagonist is a character largely ignored by history, Saint Meerabai’s husband. While the book beautifully ties up historical events to a fictional personal life created for him, what is most instructive for me is how it looks critically at the politics and war-techniques of Rajputs, often glamorized beyond recognition in the history and folk-tales.
6. To Kill a Mocking Bird by Harper Lee: Coming out of my historical dreams, I would like to put this book in a must-read list for entrepreneurs and everyone else. The takeaway from the book is how you stand up for what you think is right and doing so without getting bitter at the world. You come across a lot of rejection and negativity, when you go against the tide. But bitterness helps no one. You must still push on, like they do in this sweet, little story.
7. Predictably Irrational by Dan Ariely: Mark McCormack (author of the book “What they don’t teach you at Harvard Business School”) says something very useful in very simple words. All business situations are ultimately people situations. You are dealing with people, day in and day out. If a critical look at history helps you deal meaningfully with society at large, knowledge of psychology helps you deal with people as individuals. Very helpful and handy, in business or in personal life. There are many books around which could be helpful. I have recently been impressed with “Predictably Irrational” and “Thinking Fast and Slow”. The reason for recommending “Predictably Irrational” over the other is that is it much easier to read. Understanding and learning more psychology will never hurt though!
