Startup Founders Meetup With James Hong, Founder of Hot or Not and Angel Investor

Mar

10

Update – Brad Greenspan, ex CEO of MySpace, will be joining us as well.

Ladies and Gentlemen, e27 is hosting a exclusive meet-up session of Startup founders with James Hong, serial-investor and co-founder of one of the defining dating sites of this era – Hot or Not, which logs about 20 Million page views per day! Am sure none of us need any introduction to this site. Started by two young UC Berkley graduates, Hot or Not went ahead to sell for a rumored $20 million in 2008. Annual revenue was estimated at $5 million, with net profits of $2 million. He’s also an investor in Slide, Mochi Media, Raptr, Crunchyroll, BitTorrent, Frappr, OneSeason, and multiple other startups.

Meet the man behind this startup and get to hear his stories and insights. Also learn from his perspectives from being on both sides of the spectrum, as an entrepreneurs and as an investor.

Due to venue constraints and to ensure quality conversation, we are limiting the attendance to only 30 founders. If you are a startup founder and interested in attending this meetup, RSVP NOW!

Meetup Details

Date/Time : Thursday, March 11th 2010 / 6pm onwards

Venue: Garag3, NUS

RSVP : First 30 people to RSVP/comment on this post!

Looking forward to free flow of great conversations and loads of fun!

[Picture Courtesy: Wired]
[Video] Yahoo Open Hack Day Southeast Asia

Mar

02

Yahoo held their first ever Southeast Asia Open Hack Day in Jakarta in late November, much to the delight of developers around the region. Apart from the hacking sessions, the developers were introduced to new tools to build better apps and they got plugged into much larger community of developers. For most of the attendees there, it was their first time participating in such an event and many would love to be part of it again in future. Among the 350+ developers present, 4 of them were lucky enough to have been been flown from all over Southeast Asia (Vietnam, Malaysia, Philippines and Singapore) just to attend the event and hack with the rest of the developers. The video showcases these 4 developers, their experiences at the Hack Day and what they got out of it. It was a swell experience for them, and for me as well since I got the opportunity to be at the event and cover it. Enjoy the video and thanks Yahoo for a great Open Hack Day experience!

Great coverage of the event by Yahoo >> Link here

2010 Google Analytics Master Class on Actionable Insights in Singapore and Malaysia

Mar

I just got word that Google will be holding their analytics master class on Tuesday, 9th March, at the Meritus Mandarin Orchard, Ballroom 1. Apparently, it’s a must-attend event if you run a web based business and you want to really understand how best to utilize your web analytics data. Sneha and I are definitely attending it and I feel that startups and online business owners out there should do too. They are featuring a range of speakers including the Product Manager for Google Analytics, Beth Liebert, who is flying down just for this.

Interested participants can sign up at the following sites:

Singapore
Date: Tuesday, 9th March 2010
Location: Meritus Mandarin Orchard, Ballroom 1
Details: https://sites.google.com/site/analyticsmasterclass/singapore

Kuala Lumpur:
Date: Thursday, 11th March 2010
Location: Hilton Hotel, Ballroom A, Kuala Lumpur
Details: https://sites.google.com/site/analyticsmasterclass/malaysia

More Details: http://cse-sea.blogspot.com/2010/02/google-analytics-master-class-is-back.html

From what I heard, last years class in Singapore (which was the first in Southeast Asia) was way oversubscribed, hence I think this year’s one will be too. So do sign up early!

The agenda for the Singapore event is attached below for easy reference. See ya there!

1:30 – 2:00pm	Arrival & Registration
2:00 – 2:20pm	Keynote Address *Beth Liebert, Product Manager, Google Analytics*
2:20 – 2:40pm	The Power of Segmentation *Barbara Pezzi, Director Webmarketing & Ecommerce, Swissotel* Learn how Swissotel leverages Google Analytics advanced segments to truly understand its visitors
2:40 – 2:55pm	Google Analytics: Powerful. Flexible. Intelligent. *Stephanie Hsu, Google Analytics Specialist, Google* Google Analytics has come a long way in the last 12 months. Learn what new features now make Google Analytics a truly Powerful, Flexible, and Intelligent measurement tool.
2:55 – 3:10pm	Taming the HiPPO Adrian Tan, Director, Online Marketing Services, clickTRUE Jeff Shi, Assistant Manager, Campaign Operations, clickTRUE clickTRUE share their secrets on overcoming the demands of the Highest Paid Person’s Opinion (HiPPO) to drive real value for business
3:10 – 3:20pm	Shaping the Funnel *Vinoaj Vijeyakumaar, Customer Solutions Engineer, Google Southeast Asia* Learn how Amari Hotels used Google Analytics goal funnel reports to optimise their online sales flow to generate more reservations
3:20 – 3:30pm	Optimising AdWords with Google Analytics Data *Lianne Mateo, Google Analytics Specialist, Google Southeast Asia* *Iris Cheng, Google Analytics Specialist, Google Asia Pacific* Find out how Google’s own Google Analytics Specialists optimise AdWords campaigns for increased returns on investment (ROI)
3:30 – 3:40pm	Mobile Analytics for Plasa.com Justin Lee, PointStar PointStar share their experiences working with mobile analytics and insights for Plasa.com, Telkomsel Indonesia’s community portal
3:40 – 3:55pm	Tea Break
3:55 – 4:05pm	Optimising Raffles Hotels and Resorts *Rajitha Dahanayake, CEO, eMarketingEye* Find out how eMarketingEye have helped Raffles Hotel understand and optimise their AdWords traffic with the help of Google Analytics reports
4:05 – 4:20pm	Better Landing Pages with Google Website Optimiser *Jon Stona, Regional Product Marketing Manager, Google Asia Pacific* Test different landing page designs with Google Website Optimiser and get more visitors converting on your site
4:20 – 4:30pm	Price Testing with GWO – The Holy Grail of Marketing Rachit Dayal, CEO, Happy Marketer Happy Marketer share their experiences price testing for Genopal.com with Google Website Optimiser
4:30 – 4:45pm	Boomz! Other Data Sources To Help Your Business Succeed *Madona Michael, Account Strategist, Google Southeast Asia* Learn how to augment your Google Analytics insights with Insights for Search, Google Ad Planner, and YouTube Insights
4:45 – 4:55pm	Google Analytics Resources Dinesh Jain, Google Analytics Specialist, Google India Inspired to start making full use of Google Analytics? Learn more about the available educational resources
4:55 – 5:05pm	10 Things to do Today Vinoaj Vijeyakumaar, Customer Solutions Engineer, Google Southeast Asia Stephanie Hsu, Google Analytics Specialist, Google By now your mind is racing with the possibilities Google Analytics holds for your business. We’ve distilled everything down to 10 actionable items for when you leave our Master Class
5:05 – 5:25pm	Panel Discussion and Q&A Panelists: *Beth Liebert, Barbara Pezzi, and Hugh Gage (Web Analytics Wednesdays Singapore)*
5:25 – 6:30pm	Networking Session Hosted by *Web Analytics Wednesdays Singapore*

2C2P – Breaking the Online Payment Gateway Hegemony?

Jan

11

Payment Gateways Hegemony

Online payment gateway has always been a tough nut to crack. It’s almost akin to the OS market of the yore, being dominated by the major players, better system doesn’t equate market share, system being bogged down with bugs/fraudulent activities etc. Paypal as the Microsoft of the Payment Gateway industry with even The big behemoth, Google not being able to gain traction in this industry. But as is the case with many technology companies based in US, Paypal hasn’t figured out the elixir in Asian market and many other dominant country-specific players have emerged in the Asian region. China has Alipay, Indonesia has and Singapore has eNETS.

2C2P, a startup under MDA’s ijam Scheme is now looking into this space and has started with baby steps in the right direction by getting into patnerships with UOB bank.

Aung Kway Moe, founder of 2C2P which derives its name from “Credit Card Payment Processing” – is an established entrepreneurs in Thailand. Having founded online payment business, SinaptIQ which expanded into three subsidaries of which one of them called Paysbuy was bought over by a Thailand Mobile operator.

Talk about 2C2P a little bit

- History from Sinaptec

Sinaptec

- Paysbuy Sold off to mobile operator in Thailand

- Startup under Expara, Douglas being 20% equity stakeholder.

- Achieved 1 billion bath in transactions

- mobile payment partnering with Amway in Thailand

- Development team in Thailand

Singapore Payment Gateway market

In Singapore, Currently the dominant players are Paypal, Worldpay and eNETS. eNETS the homegrown payment gateway service owned by OCBC, DBS and UOB and allows payment through credit and debit cards. Though we are yet to see mass adoption of ecommerce in the SE asian region

2c2p are also entering into the mobile payment market and according to the them the solution “is like square without the device” which to simply put is like other mobile solution in the market. Their mobile payment solution will be launched in Thailand on Feb 15th and they are hoping they can launch in Spore by the end of Q2.

The online payment gateway sector has always been a tough nut to crack. It’s almost akin to the OS market of yore – dominated by huge players; better systems don’t necessarily equate to higher market share and the industry is bogged down by rampant bugs and the lurking danger of fraudulent activity. But as is the case with many technology companies based in the western hemisphere, Paypal – the dominant player in the market hasn’t quite figured out the elixir in the Asian market and the result is that many other dominant country-specific players have emerged in this region. China has Alipay, Malaysia has MOL and Singapore has eNETS.

SinaptIQ and 2C2P

2C2P, a startup under MDA’s iJam Scheme is now entering the Singapore space and has started with baby steps in the right direction by getting into partnership with UOB.

Aung Kway Moe, founder of 2C2P is an established entrepreneur in Thailand. He founded SinaptIQ in 2003 which expanded into three subsidaries of which one of them – Paysbuy was bought over for THB 85M by a Thailand Mobile operator, Total Access Communications (DTAC).

The other subsidaries of SinaptIQ – DCC and 2C2P focuses on different aspects of e-commerce. Dynamic currency converter (DCC), as the name suggests is a real-time application that gives users a choice of paying in Thai Baht or a foreign currency. Its transaction volume breached THB2.0b in Sept 2009 . 2C2P on the other hand focuses on providing Cybersource-esque services in Asia by mainly providing credit card processing, payment gateway solutions and dispute management services.

Established in 2007, 2C2P is a joint-venture between Douglas Abrams and Aung Kway Moe. When asked about why he chose Singapore as the destination to launch 2C2P, he mentioned that Singapore market is open to new transaction-based payment solutions and also sees larger access to funds here.

Singapore Payment Gateway market

In Singapore, the dominant players are Paypal, Worldpay and eNETS. eNETS – the homegrown payment gateway service co-owned by OCBC, DBS and UOB – allows payment through credit and debit cards. Though we are yet to see mass adoption of e-commerce by retailers in the SE-Asian region, Juniper Research estimates that the global transaction market will reach $587 billion by 2011, with much of the payment volume coming from Asia. Aung sees a tremendous opportunity to leverage here, and though he is expecting setbacks from the big players in this market, he is ready to launch 2C2P on a war footing.

Laurels

2C2P was a finalist in the Red Herring 100 Asia 2008 Awards for playing an “important role of technology in Asian economy and throughout the world.” They also won the “Nokia Calling All Innovators” competition in 2009.

Mobile payment solution

2C2P are also entering into the mobile payment market and they claim the solution “is like Square without the device” which to simply put, is like any other mobile solution in the market. Their mobile payment solution will be launched in Thailand on Feb 15th for which they have already acquired a partnership with Amway and they are hoping they can launch it in Singapore by the end of Q2 2010.

With a plethora of mobile payments solutions, e-commerce payment solutions and a variety of players in the value chain, it will definitely be an uphill task for 2C2P to break the mould. Though the solutions they provide are not path-breaking or revolutionary through any lens, it will definitely be great to see more players in this field.

Update: They are also listed as one of the finalists in the Red Herring 2009 Global Awards.
Introducing e27 echelon 2010

Jan

08

If you can’t view the video, click here