We had a small budget, and when you outsource development with a low budget, it takes 6 months to do it, which is a huge cost in terms of opportunity. This opportunity cost is everything. We hired someone after that, a fresh graduate, and started again from scratch. In the dot-com space, people move very quickly, so you need to have someone who code near you. Vietnam is a lot cheaper, but having a guy with you, even more costly, you can have daily updates.
When we first started… wait even us were not pioneers. Singapore Brides were here 5 years before. We did not have startup grants, or MDA [the Media Development Authority, a key supporter of media startups], there was nothing!
Now you have a place where you can talk, you have coworking spaces, a lot of help. At the time, dot-com startups were not considered really interesting. It was a pain to raise money. We had a lot of press coverage, as the field of dot-com was less crowded, it was really perceived as bold and we had sort of easily to get a feature story on the Straits Times.
Our co-founder was Cambridge-educated, PhD, with lots of job opportunities, so we really milked his CV to make our story of crazy guys launching a startup! We were quite open-minded and had third-parties to review and provide ideas, so we launched new features, changed the platform.
We organised free dinners with users to get their feedback. Even if the feedback is contradictory, with some reviewer being very dominant, you still have matter to decide over. People you learn a lot from change with time. In the early days, the founders from Singapore Brides and JobFactory did teach me a lot.
I also discussed with older, more traditional business builders who had sold for huge numbers in the semi-conductor industry. They would help me to know what actually meant the words from VCs, investors, and other stakeholders. I also talked a lot to people who did not succeed to learn why they did fail and how to avoid it possibly.
The key takeaways in our opinion of ecosystem travellers are:. Join our mailing list to receive 3 weekly insights from Innovation Is Everywhere and stay up-to-date with innovation in retail, fintech, supply chain and more. While he graduated from the University of Michigan with a Bachelor of Economics in , his learning in the real world only began after that and he regards himself as a student for life.
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