The Small World Group, managed by Frank Levinson and his partner, Dean Haritos, is one of the seven designated technology venture incubators from the National Research Foundation (NRF) TIS Scheme. The technology focus of this company is on clean tech, optics and materials and it has begun operations in Singapore to start working with entrepreneurs to bring new tech companies to market. We sat down with Frank Levinson, one of the partners in Small World Group and chat with him on several subjects, from how he started Small World Group to the type of entrepreneurs which the incubator will be interested to fund. He will also share some of the earlier success stories he has with regards to incubation of tech companies and talks about the future plans of the Small World Group in Singapore.

BL: Hi Frank, thank you for agreeing to the interview for SGEntrepreneurs. Prior to the Small World Group, what is your background?
Frank Levinson: I have a PhD in Astronomy from the University of Virginia. Following that I worked in the field of optical communications for more than 25 years. I started out at Bell Labs and in 1988 started Finisar Corporation which today is the largest fiber optic transceiver supplier in the world. We started Finisar without VC help. Today, while not active with the company, I am still a large private shareholder.

One way to measure Finisar’s success is by Internet bandwidth shipped. Today Finisar ships 10 Mb/s of bandwidth per month per person on earth. This figure has been growing by 10x every 5 years for the past 20 years.

BL: How do you start the Small World Group?
Frank Levinson: When I left Finisar, I wanted again to make a measurable difference in the world. And it was clear to me that clean tech was a coming wave as well that Asia was a key place in this century. So I started SWG to be the overall structure surrounding those efforts. SWG participates in philanthropic efforts to help monitor the earth’s inventory of biodiversity through Small World Group Institute, my foundation in the USA. But that same foundation has already supported one project here in Singapore in support of the Raffles Museum of Biodiversity as well. Next, there is Small World Group Capital which is the Venture Capital fund that has helped me invest in Vixar, myCaption, Daylight Solutions, Dewey Homes and Fabrinet. And now there is Small World Group Incubator which is the work I am doing here in Singapore that is in partnership with Singapore NRF and the technology incubation scheme (TIS).

I took some of the proceeds from the sale of Finisar stock and have put that money to work under the Small World Group brand.

BL: As one of the seven NRF TIS incubators in Singapore, we read from your brochure that your focus is on clean tech, optics and materials. Why do you pick start-ups in this space to incubate?
Frank Levinson: Basically, I chose optical systems because of the Finisar experience, clean tech from the heavy focus I have had over the past 5 years in that area and materials because I am a Venture Partner in a new VC firm – Phoenix Venture Partners (www.phoenix-vp.com) which will focus on materials and so with that partnership Incubator level investments we start here would have access to Series A/B level funding as they are successful.

BL: What are the three features you will look for in an entrepreneur who is interested to incubate under Small World Group?
Frank Levinson: First they have to be smart and nice. Ventures are small teams and in that environment, you must have a leader with their ego in check. They need to be able to listen and lead not command and demand. We want our ventures to be lean but “mean” has no place in our work.

Next they must have a real dedication to their early customers. We are not funding science projects. We will only fund startups that have identified their early customers down to their names and cell phone numbers. We want all of the team members to know who they work for … the customer! And ultimately we want more than 1 early customer, and at least one customer must be outside of Singapore.

Finally, we want our entrepreneur’s to be able to work with “too little money”. This will put a premium on innovation over spending their way to success. Ideally, they will be people who start out by accepting modest salaries and who have much to learn but that grow with their business and become world class leaders through the experience.

BL: Can you share with us the funding range that you will invest in a new company? Or does it follow another model?
Frank Levinson: We can fund up to $588K inside the NRF TIS. We may do less than this and we are able to invest in 2 tranches inside the NRF scheme. We feel that with discipline that this figure can go far. We have very good working relationships with NUS, NTU, SMU, SIMTech, IME, and many of the other Singapore Institutes. Our plan is to help our startups partner with these groups in ways that further leverages our initial investment.

BL: Any interesting companies that Small World Group has incubated before entering Singapore? Can you share a story or two for our readers?
Frank Levinson: I am a major VC for Daylight Solutions, myCaption, CloudBreak Software and Vixar. In all cases, I hold a board seat, have been a major financial contributor, helped set the Series A terms.

Daylight Solutions works to build tunable laser light sources in the 3-12 um wavelengths of light using Quantum Cascade lasers. Their systems are useful in Defense, in chemical detection, in free space optical communications. In early funding the lead investor ran into legal problems and the partners ended up fighting and so I was asked to step in. I did and then less that a year later based on key milestones being met we were able to bring European VCs to the investment mix as well as development partners from a lab in Switzerland.

In the case of Cloudbreak, I was the major investor there. The company had software that optimized work flow in financial offices. They had amazing customer loyalty and provided very quantifiable efficiency and profitability improvements for their customers. But their main product was in the mortgage business and when the bubble burst in 2008 they lost 1000s of customers in a single day because their customers just died/bankrupt. In the end that company closed. But I was so impressed by the team and how they worked with customers, that their CEO – Dean Haritos – is now my partner in the Small World Group Incubator. In the USA we don’t punish failure we assess it and remember that such painful experiences are full of hard learned lessons that make the right person all the more valuable.

BL: What are your future plans for Small World Group within the next few months?
Frank Levinson: We hope to start some companies inside the NRF TIS program in the next 2-3 months and then build our pipeline so that we start 1 company per month over time. That is probably optimistic but for now it is our target.

BL: How is the experience as a foreign company setting up in Singapore? Any tips for anyone who might consider doing the same setup here.
Frank Levinson: Singapore has been my most visited place outside the USA now for more than 10 years. This is a young country that aggressively grapples with its future and takes bold steps when required. come over and find that out for yourself.

BL:: Thank you for the interview and we wish both success for the Small World Group and her incubatees.

Related posts:

1. 7 Incubators Selected for Singapore NRF TIS Means More Money For Startups
2. New Technology Incubation Scheme To Fill 6-digit Funding Gap
3. EDBI Leads Series D Investment in Innovalight, Vertex Joins Round

Radioactive is a Singapore based company which recently develop a proprietary streaming platform that allows users to get broadcast quality radio into the mobile phone. They have launched their first product, Laylio, an iPhone app which allows anyone to tune to their favourite radio stations in Singapore. We review their latest product Laylio (which has been the number 1 download app on iTunes store for a couple of weeks) and thought that you want to check out this interesting product which was launched a month ago.

The man behind Laylio and RADIOactive is Andrew Crothers, and the aim of the company is to allow radio to be accessed on 3G phones in an easy and cost effective manner. With a saturation of apps on the iTunes store, it is important for the developer of apps to identify their competitive advantage and how they might be able to carve a niche or a following for the app. Given that many users have grown up with radio, the demand for such an app becomes apparent. Till date, Laylio has 70K+ users. The key according to Andrew is to focus on thinking about the users first and making the app simple with thoughtful design and decent branding of the product. In an interesting note, the iPhone version of the Laylio app is assembled within 3 weeks. In the coming weeks, an android version of Laylio will be ready for those holding a Google Android handset.

If you have downloaded the iPhone app Laylio which is free in the iTunes store, you will find that you can access the popular radio stations on the iPhone, for example FM 93.3, FM 95.0 and FM98.7. As of today, Laylio has 8 stations that the user can access to. Upon selection of the station, the user can actually listen live to the radio station of his or her choice, the user might want to call or email the station, that could possibly facilitate interaction between the user and the DJs of the respective station. However, the “call” function on the Laylio app is limited to only some stations. On the technology side of things, Laylio is a player that is capable of handling standard WMA stream links, with many more formats (including their own) under the hood. What the Laylio wants to see is the real engagement between listeners with the station and the broadcasters who need to keep their numbers healthy in the space. Of course, their hope is to see more local players adopting their streaming platform (which helps broadcasting stations to cut costs & increase online audience who are listening to the radio) in the region.

While the product is flawless in delivering radio content to the iPhone, there exist limitations which the technology has to overcome. One interesting issue that we found is that if we are in an underground MRT station or in very tight enclosed where the 3G signals (and SingTel users will complain about this as much as I have) are weak, the app will take a considerable amount to buffer until the connection gets better. Of course, it will be interesting to see how Laylio can monetize for the near future. We will leave that when we get Andrew down for an interview in SGE soon.

On the long term, the aim of Radioactive is to build a set of tools for the terrestrial broadcasters to move into the mobile space. Andrew also stressed the importance of content in the app with the following thoughts, “We’ve got the delivery nailed, but content is everything – and our solutions will really keep content dynamic, engaging and relevant… which has always been the great thing about radio above all mediums.”

Meanwhile, if you have some time while traveling between places, why not check out the Laylio app from the iTunes store. Do let us know your thoughts about the app and perhaps, we can get the team from Laylio to get some feedback about the app as well.

Related posts:

1. Mobile Development Workshop – iPhone Platform
2. 65Bits Episode 123 : Month of SmartPhones 2 – iPhone 3GS
3. A-SFUG Meetup – iPhone, Flash CS5, Shared Library

We present the slides for the talk in Start-Up@Singapore on the topic “How to write an executive in 24 hours”. It provides a comprehensive guide with examples to how one can write a 2-5 pages executive summary: (a) introduction, (b) problem/opportunity, (c) technology/service/product, (d) team, (e) route to market, (f) business strategies, (g) financials and (h) exit strategy.

Related posts:

1. Executive Summary – Ideas, Innovation & Purpose
2. Executive Summary Workshop – Ideas, Innovation and Purpose – 24 Oct
3. The 24 Hour Biz Plan Challenge and Executive Summary Deadline

Recently, I read that Angels Den from Europe has landed in Singapore. In their proposal, they are charging startups S$1499 upfront to pitch, and takes a 5% success fee. It also prompted response from local blogger DK that entrepreneurs should not pay investors to pitch. My stance is that entrepreneurs and start-ups should not pay investors to pitch and here are my opinions on this issue.

Probably, as an investor and entrepreneur myself, I have never believed that you should pay consortiums or groups of angels and venture capitalists to pitch. It is totally contrary to the spirit on how the entrepreneurial ecosystem should work. Sometime back, Jason Calacanis, CEO of Mahalo and also host to “This Week in Startups” took on angel groups in US, for example, Keiretsu Forum, Angels Den and Tech Super Club. According to Jason Calacanis, get entrepreneurs to pay for pitching is ridiculous. As a result of taking on these groups, Jason Calacanis led the beginning of an Open Angel Forum to provide a new model for entrepreneurs to pitch for free against these groups.

It is not in my place to offer any opinions about Angels Den, but I will state my opinion why entrepreneurs should not pay investors to pitch.

• Renowned Business Angels and Venture Capitalists who created big companies don’t do that: Ask the famous business angels like Joi Ito or famous venture capitalists from Sequoia Capital, Kleiner Perkins, Benchmark Capital and etc, you do not hear that they require the entrepreneurs to pitch. Instead, they are ready to buy the entrepreneur a meal or drink and spend the time to listen to the ideas of the entrepreneurs. These are the same angels and venture capitalists who produce Google, Facebook and Twitter. None of the top notched companies pay angels to pitch their ideas. Consider another argument, entrepreneurs are trying to set up companies with limited resources and financing, and yet these groups make them pay to find investment. In fact, a lot of entrepreneurs and developers enjoyed the free Neoteny Conference organized by Joi Ito last year. The people who attended (including myself) even learned more abut term sheets and valuation. Try to make a guess how much it cost to get Joi Ito to talk about start-ups and new venture financing: Absolutely Free! and I did not add the free lunches and coffee breaks too.
• Even agencies Singapore Government make it free for entrepreneurs: If you have recently watched the iMatch conference, where MDA organized entrepreneurs in Singapore to pitch in front of an international consortium, you do not hear the Singapore government will tell you to pay for pitching. In fact, they enlisted the services of the incubators in iJAM and several business angels to help the companies to prepare their presentation for the investors. It’s probably one of the things I praised the government agencies like SPRING and MDA are doing with the iJAM and TECS schemes.
• If you fail many times to get an investor, you will end up losing more money doing this: Here is a way to think about this. If you pitch your idea and the investor did not respond to you, it just means that he or she has no interest to invest in your company. Your job is to iterate from the reason to why the investor did not think that it’s a good proposition to invest in your idea. If you are serious about your start-up, you will put your own money to make it work than to spend the money to pay some middle men to get you investors who may or may not put money into your company.

I will leave the entrepreneurs to decide whether to engage with these groups. Ultimately, in the ecosystem, there must also be a natural selection to decide the weak and the strong. Perhaps, having these groups help to make that distinction.

Related posts:

1. Entrepreneurs’ Basic Etiquette with Potential Investors
2. Pitch To Joi Ito
3. VCs, Angels, Entrepreneurs Summit with Joi Ito – 14 Sep

It’s that time of the year when we actually review what has gone past a turbulent year 2009 and probably a year after the financial crisis that rocked the world after the collapse of Lehman Brothers in Sep 2008. Of course, one of the key after effects is that fundraising for start-ups in the technology space become increasingly difficult this year. While we are beginning to see more and more acquisitions in the US tech space, the SG tech start-ups are still working towards a tough environment. In the technology entrepreneurship scene, significant incidents have shaped and brought forward new perspectives in Singapore. While we are about to start the new road ahead in 2010. Here are the top 5 tech entrepreneurship events that rocked SG in 2009 (in no order of preference):

• The Fusion Garage vs TechCrunch fiasco over CrunchPad (now JooJoo): With so much furore that poured out three weeks ago from Mike Arrington who declared the death of Crunchpad, the whole incident has brought upon a sad day in Singapore tech scene. With a lawsuit on intellectual property pending between Fusion Garage and TechCrunch, it is not clear if JooJoo will appeal to the marketplace. We have learned two important lessons from this whole fiasco: one, contractual agreements are necessary for a partnership; two, getting investors who do not understand the tech space are a bad idea, given that the investor Bruce Lee has caused the ruckus that perpetuated the fall of CrunchPad.
• The rise of Brandtology in the social media monitoring space: Earlier the year, we see the emergence of monitoring tools that focus on gathering data and tracking sentiment analysis in the social media space, for e.g. Brandtology, ThoughtBuzz and JamiQ. Within the span of two months, Brandtology has leapt frog among the pack by inking a partnership with Edelman, getting serious series A funding of S$2M from Walden International, and expanded into many countries from Australia to China.
• SocialWok and iTwin shone brightly in TechCrunch 50 event: Singapore start-ups have made their mark in the TechCrunch 50 event in Sep this year, with iTwin making the presentation stage with their product that allow secure file transfer using two USB connected devices and SocialWok, a company specializing in enterprise based social networking and Google applications securing the winner of the DemoPit in the exhibition area of TechCrunch 50. Although we have not heard much from these start-ups, we hope that there will be good news coming ahead from them with respect to funding in the next stages of their venture.
• Neoteny Labs and Hackerspace SG poise to change the funding gap and innovation culture in Singapore?: The Neoteny Labs with Joi Ito bringing his entire ecoystem to jumpstart our nascent tech entrepreneurship scene has begun to change the dynamics with their unconference. With a different strategy from bringing Pivotal Labs and introducing Agile Development to the tech entrepreneurs, the team in Neoteny Labs has brought something totally different, not to mention a real different culture on tolerating failure and encouraging an open source environment. The same can be said of Hackerspace SG, bringing technologists, entrepreneurs and developers from all walks of life in Singapore and setting a private space for hackers to try new ideas and create new technology. The biggest distinction for HackerSpace SG against all other initiatives is that we see enthusiasts in technology are moving out of the comfort zone to start their own thing by putting down their own money instead of relying on public assistance from government. Some wonder why setting up the Hackerspace SG is important and the simplest example I can think is to think about how Homebrew Computer Club in Silicon Valley sparked the personal computer revolution. We hope these new changes will continue to ferment the groundswell and push a tipping point to our entrepreneurial scene here. There are talks on creating a proper Y-Combinator in Singapore after a vibrant discussion in the Neoteny Conference, so watch this space.
• TenCube winning the Android Developer Challenge and other start-ups like 2C2P and BreakDesign winning similar accolades: Over the year, while we see the new start-ups popping out of the blue, we also see the older ones making headway. TenCube has make remarkable strides with their WaveSecure product, first putting the app into Nokia phones and subsequently winning the Android Developer Challenge. We heard that TenCube is in the final stages of closing another round of financing and we wish them all the best for the year ahead. The same can be said of FAME for being the finalist in Facebook Fund competition and many other companies who made headway in 2009 like BreakDesign being the first SG company to get the Adobe-Nokia Open Screen fund and 2C2P winning the Calling All Innovators Challenge for Nokia. Other notable start-ups that have made strides within the year include Tyler Projects, BuUuk, HomeCamera, Garena, Foyage, Time Voyager, AiNet (Lunch Actually and Eteract), Mozat, Mig33 and OrSiSo in the space as well.

With a great year for SG Tech scene in 2009 despite the backdrop of CrunchPad fiasco, we look forward to 2010 and hope to see more new tech companies springing. Probably, I might have not done justice to other events which may be of importance this year. If you have any ones, do drop yours into our comments as well.

Related posts:

1. HackerspaceSG: Events of Week 52 (Dec 21 – Dec 27)
2. HackerspaceSG: Events of Week 4 (Jan 25 – Jan 31)
3. TWIA Episode 8: In Hackerspace SG with Wong Meng Weng

The very public fallout between US-based TechCrunch and Singapore-based Fusion Garage was publicised, analysed and critiqued to no end, but was just based solely on the TechCrunch side of things. Last Monday, Mike Arrington of TechCrunch made the declaration of the end of CrunchPad and claimed that they will file a litigation against Fusion Garage. Within the tech community across the world, we were left wondering what had happened and have been waiting to hear Fusion Garage’s side of the story. The long awaited media event from Fusion Garage finally happened about an hour ago as the CEO Chandrasekar Rathakrishnan, took the stage through a live streaming video conference and conveyed three main points: (1) the fallout with TechCrunch and reply to Mike Arrington’s claims, (2) a demo of JooJoo (it’s no longer called CrunchPad) and (3) the product specs and pricing of JooJoo. We offer a narrative account on what transpired during the live-tweeting that went along with the video conference from Chandra.

Update: This story is still ongoing. For what happened before this – read this. To view updates, read here, here, here and here.

Here are the points summarized from Chandra’s video conference, followed by a planned Q&A session with someone asking him questions in the background. First of all, an overall comment on Chandra’s performance: he did stick to the talking points given to him and probably did not reveal a lot of information as to who has invested in Fusion Garage. Kudos to San Jose-based McGrath/Power Public Relations who have done a good job to prepare him for this video conference.

The Start Of The Affair

Back in early 2008, Fusion Garage had already started working on some bits of the software development for a browser-based operating system (OS) and on reading one of Michael’s blog posts, Chandra came to realise of the shared vision between Michael and himself.

At TechCrunch50 in September 2008, Chandra introduced himself to Michael and that was when the mutual courting started and the affair developed.

Refuting Mike Arrington’s Claims And Debate Over IP Rights

According to Chandra, there are no contracts signed between both parties and there have been only verbal discussions on the product. The IP is owned by Fusion Garage alone, both the OS that powers the device and the hardware and Chandra claimed that neither Mike Arrington nor TechCrunch has contributed anything to the device. So far, we know that TechCrunch only owns the trademark “CrunchPad” and that it was only filed recently.

“TechCrunch did not contribute a single line of code.” – Chandra, CEO of Fusion Garage

Chandra claims that Michael offered to bring in investors but with a much bigger goal in mind, to structure a path towards acquiring Fusion Garage one day, with Michael himself having a controlling interest. But that Michael had failed to follow through on his promise and did not get any investments by the prototype B stage. So, Fusion Garage had to go on its own and complete the product.

Perhaps the quote of the day from Chandra:

“Unfortunately, Michael was unable to deliver at the project’s date end, in February 2009… pictures of a birthday cake do not mean a contract is in place. If the project was to go forward, it was up to Fusion Garage.”

From CrunchPad To The JooJoo

The device has now been renamed JooJoo, inspired by an African meaning of magic. The device has a 12.1″ touchscreen and accelerometer, 4 GB SSD, Wi-Fi connectivity, no SIM slot and claimed 5 hour battery life powered by an UNIX web-based operating system. Of course, Chandra repeated that the device boots up in 9 seconds but did not give any demo of the apps installed inside (Twitter, Facebook, Flicker, Gmail etc.). He did mention that if the user is offline, there will be a local cache that stores the data, for e.g. GMail.

Chandra holding the JooJoo, sourced from Engadget.

The JooJoo And How You Can Get Your Hands On It

The price of the JooJoo device is USD 499, and the site for ordering the device can be found here: http://www.thejoojoo.com. By the way, the product only comes in one color: black. To be honest, I personally think that the price of JooJoo is way too expensive for a netbook.

A few things popped up in the press conference. One, we still do not know who the investors behind Fusion Garage are. But we know that they have raised USD 3M and another investor will be announced this week. Two, according to Chandra, TechCrunch contributed nothing other than marketing. In Chandra’s words about the whole saga between TechCrunch and Fusion Garage:

“There was never any agreement of any kind between the two companies. This was nothing more than a potential acquisition that didn’t occur. Michael sat back while we took all the risk. The suggestion that Michael or TechCrunch owns anything is simply ludicrous.”

It runs in contradiction to one claim made by Mike Arrington in his post:

“Their team has mixed with our CrunchPad team, which is led by Brian Kindle, the former Vice President Hardware Engineering and Manufacturing at Vudu and an early hardware engineer at TiVo. Development expenses have been shared, and our team has spent time in Singapore and Taiwan, and their team has spent time here.

If we believe what Chandra has said on the IP of JooJoo, it will lead us to the conclusion that Mike Arrington has failed “Entrepreneurship 101″ with the mistake that they have not signed a single contract with Fusion Garage. Of course, we expect a refutation from Mike Arrington and TechCrunch very soon. Originally we were hoping that Chandra will pull a CEO of a MNC (like Intel, Apple) out of the bag but instead, he pulled out a JooJoo. The truth is often stranger than fiction.

Where Does This Leave TechCrunch?

With this press conference and the launch of The JooJoo, TechCrunch seems to have been totally left by the wayside by Fusion Garage. Like some annoying kid you had to boot out of your car for some peace and quiet, leaving the child stranded by the desert road, flailing his arms wildly with frightened tears streaming down his cheeks. Only this time, TechCrunch is not so much frightened as angry, and probably stomping down the road in pursuit of Fusion Garage, breathing in toxic fumes and creating more fodder for tech tabloid hungry journalists and bloggers.

Now that the video conference is over with Chandra and the ball is back to the TechCrunch court. All of us are now wondering, “What will be Mike Arrington’s next move?”

Joint article by Bernard and Gwen.

Images courtesy of Engadget and elisfanclub.

Related Links:
Engadget – Live blogging of the Fusion Garage CrunchPad Video Conference

Update: This story is still ongoing. For what happened before this – read this. To view updates, read here, here, here, here and here.

Related posts:

1. RIP CrunchPad
2. CSL Partners Fusion Garage and Makes Strategic Investment
3. Fusion Garage vs iPad, New Partnership with Mobile Player in SEA and New Funding Round

The CrunchPad (the picture from the left sourced from TechCrunch), a product collaboration between TechCrunch and Fusion Garage has been one of the achievements hailed by many here in Singapore, giving hope that there might be something finally to go beyond Creative against Apple (where they lost the mp3 player war). However, we just received word from TechCrunch with the announcement from Michael Arrington making the declaration: “It’s a sad day at TechCrunch HQ. Hitting the publish button on this post, which makes all of this so…final…is a very hard thing to do. I’m enraged, embarrassed, and just…sad. The CrunchPad is now in the DeadPool.”. We review what has happened from the expose written by Mike Arrington

Update: This story is still ongoing. You can view updates here, here, here and here.

• Shareholders of Fusion Garage do not want to work with Mike Arrington & TechCrunch: According to Michael Arrington and in his own words, “the entire project self destructed over nothing more than greed, jealousy and miscommunication.” He pointed out one reason that led to the collapse of the deal is that the shareholders on Fusion Garage side is pressuring Chandra to move forward and sell the device directly through Fusion Garage, without the involvement of TechCrunch. If the story is exactly the way how Arrington put it (as we need to give the benefit of doubt to his claims too), we should be asking, “What the hell the shareholders from Fusion Garage are thinking?” We are pretty convinced that TechCrunch and Mike Arrington will add much brand equity for CrunchPad to take off in the US and perhaps even subsequently to the rest of the world. We must remember a local example of ours, Creative had superior technology (compared to other portable music players) but fell behind on savvy marketing skills, which led to another dominating the space.




• The whole mess will now go with who owns the intellectual property of CrunchPad: From reading the article, given the collaboration between both Fusion Garage and TechCrunch, the issue of who owns the intellectual property is going to bring about lawsuits. According to Mike Arrington, there are three versions of the prototype developed so far between both teams: “Neither we nor Fusion Garage own the intellectual property of the CrunchPad outright… Development expenses have been shared, and our team has spent time in Singapore and Taiwan, and their team has spent time here. We chose to work with Fusion Garage on Prototype C and the launch prototype after we finished Prototype B internally.” Yes, we did meet the TechCrunch people who were here a few months back. It’s sad that the whole project has gone south.




• The media will not be on Fusion Garage’s side: Given the influence of TechCrunch in the web/tech space, it will be interesting to see how Fusion Garage is going to put their spin to why the deal failed. What’s interesting to take note is that Mike Arrington recently got a CEO fired based on the ScamVille incident. TechCrunch will probably deal the killer blow even if Fusion Garage changed their minds now.




• What is Fusion Garage’s Story?: After all, we have read the story from Mike Arrington’s side and not from Chandra Rathakrishnan (CEO of Fusion Garage, previously of Velvet Puffin). We are now trying to reach Fusion Garage for further comment and hope to hear their side of the story.

Do let us know your thoughts and comments on the issue.

Update 1: One of our contacts at Fusion Garage has responded to confirm that they will part ways with TechCrunch, but that the CEO, Chandra will respond on behalf of the company very soon. Let’s wait to hear what he has to say.

Update 2: CrunchPad partner plans media event – San Francisco Business Times. According to the news, Chandrasekar Rathakrishnan, founder and CEO of Fusion Garage, will do a video call and in private briefings scheduled for later Monday next week at the St. Regis Hotel in San Francisco with the whole PR handled by San Jose-based McGrath/Power Public Relations. Looks like more will be unfold in the weeks to come.

Update 3: Mike Arrington (TechCrunch), in response to the upcoming press conference, have prepared the litigation materials to sue Fusion Garage.

Update 4 (Feb 4th 2010): This story is still ongoing. You can view updates here, here, here, here and here.

Image of fire courtesy of Stacirl.

Related Links:
- TodayOnline

Related posts:

1. Fusion Garage Strikes Back: From CrunchPad to JooJoo
2. This Week in Asia Episode 5: The CrunchPad Disaster
3. The Joo Joo Delay And A Summary Of The Legal Wrangle With TechCrunch

Forum Nokia is Nokia’s global developer community and support program for mobile developers. Unlike the other smartphone developer platforms, the developer communities for Nokia has to grapple with many types handsets from Nokia that come in all shapes and sizes and cater to different markets from developing countries like the BIIC (Brazil, India, Indonesia and China) to developed economies (UK, US, Singapore). Through a private meeting arranged by Text100, I sat down with Purnima Kochikar, the VP Forum Nokia and Developer Communities, who is currently based in Silicon Valley. We discussed various issues from the trends and observations from emerging markets, mobile apps with interesting stories to tell, and the issues with rising apps stores from different providers in the market.

To begin with, our conversation have been broken into three interesting areas which might have impact for those who are thinking about developing mobile apps for the Ovi Store:

• What are the trends and observations with regards to the mobile apps in the emerging economies, for e.g. India? : From a strategic level, Purnima comes up with an upfront answer that the mobile apps in emerging economies do not follow a one size fit all model. In fact, she broke it down into two categories: (1) high end market – where the users are global citizens and have the capability to own a smart-phone and access to mobile apps that helps to increase their productivity, for example, email and utility apps and (2) the rural communities and emerging middle working class which makes up most of the population: where the users rely on the mobile phone that can help to solve some of their daily needs or offer them a way to better life.
  
  
  She provided the example of Nokia LifeTools (which works for the handsets: Nokia 2330, Nokia 2700 and Nokia 2323), as an example of emerging market innovation where it is focused to deliver agriculture information such as weather, commodity prices and crop prices; education services (quizzes, learning English) and entertainment (daily horoscope) to rural users. In the conversation, she highlighted that that most rural households in emerging economies share one phone where both parents and the children utilize the apps for different purposes, and hence the LifeTools is designed to cater their needs and improve their life.
  
  Purnima also stressed that the way how they packaged their offerings are based on three principles: (1) Aspiration – to make life better and provide locally relevant information for the users in these markets, (2) Affordability: The key is to work out how much they can pay and what they are willing to pay for. For example, in these emerging markets, Nokia offers a choice to consumers to withdraw a service within 10 days if it does not serve their needs, and they found that there is a 85% retention rate of users and (3) Access – where users pay via prepaid cards and short message service (SMS).
• Interesting apps stories: She share two interesting apps which has grown in emerging markets and reflects theme that the consumers chooses apps that tends to have their content locally relevant. The first one is the Cricket T20 World Championship, a game which is popular in the India market, given that Cricket is a national sensation. The second app is iMusti, which started off from an entrepreneur who is interested in archiving Indian Classical Music and ended up being directed from India to Canada, where he found consumers who wants such content. In the end, he turned to mobile via the Ovi Store to distribute the music content that is specifically catered for a niche market.







• On the saturation of Mobile Apps stores in the market: Given there is an increasing plethora of apps stores coming from not just handset vendors and computer hardware & software compaines, but also those emerging from the telcos, for example China Unicom and SK TeleCom (Korea), what will be the future for consumers? Purnima replied that the apps stores are examples of how technology have replicated shops and stores from the offline world and brought into the online world via mobile. With increasing competition from handset vendors, software makers, cloud computing companies (Google) and even telcos, the online stores presented by each one of these companies will grow with more sophistication and the functional competencies of these online apps store will improve as well. The apps store will also start to evolve similar to shops in the offline world, where we have consumers making the choice to go to a shopping mall or a boutique shop.

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Bloomerang is a start-up founded by two founders, Zhiwen and Joon Ian. Their first product, BloomerHang® transforms clothes hangers into a novel, eco-friendly advertising platform. What’s more interesting, it is a product made of recycled cardboard and completely biodegradable and recyclable. The product even goes as far as ending the team as a finalist to the President’s Design Award Singapore 2009: Design of the Year. What’s the story behind this eco-conscious and ideas-driven startup? We caught Wong Joon Ian, one of the co-founders and sat down to interview him about the story behind Bloomerang, the process of getting the trademark and the challenges in position BloomerHang as an advertising platform.

BL: Thank you for the interview. What did you do before setting up Bloomerang?
Wong Joon Ian: I like to say I’m a recovering journalist. I had a pretty atypical path in that I spent a lot of time freelancing and publishing my own stuff. I started out with intern gigs at New Straits Times in Kuala Lumpur, the independent publisher Malaysiakini (I’m Malaysian), the e-mail city guide Flavorpill in New York City and other places. I and some friends started Justdancelah.com, a Web magazine about electronic music and club culture in Singapore and Malaysia, back when ‘clubbing’ was the big new thing. That ran for almost three years. Then I moved to Shanghai and freelanced for folks like South China Morning Post and various expat rags. My last post was deputy editor at China Economic Review. In between, I’ve also written everything from artist bios for international DJs to hotel franchise booklets for investors in China.

Zhiwen was a business development executive at a sizable trading company in Singapore. The firm supplied disposable foodware to big companies like Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf, Starbucks, F&N vending etc. Zhiwen led efforts to open new markets for the company in the gourmet coffee, coffee machine, and cinema concession businesses. He was responsible for the local and regional development of the gourmet coffee business in Delifrance. He also expanded the concessionaire and snack foods business and presence at 7-11 and Cheers stores and Film Garde cinemas in Singapore.

BL: What is the story behind Bloomerang? How did you come about designing such a product?
Wong Joon Ian: We have to agree with the Straits Times when it called us ‘accidental environmentalists’. Zhiwen noticed a shortage of hangers at his gym, and at the same time, the surplus of advertising posters inside. He combined the ideas and started researching materials for his hanger. It turned out that paper was the best choice because it allowed high-resolution printing and the costs were relatively low. Zhiwen also happened to have a friend (and great supporter of our venture) who runs one of the biggest printing and packaging firms in Singapore.

BL: Tell us about the Bloomerang product and why is it “eco-conscious, ideas driven”?
Wong Joon Ian: We use the term eco-conscious because we think that awareness is the first step to being eco-friendly. To use a cliche from the self-help literature, admitting there’s a problem is the first step to solving it! We are not experts on the climate change debate, but we do believe in reducing our impact on the environment in ways that make sense to individuals.

With bloomerang’s paper hangers, for example, we chose a material that has a high recycle rate. Fifty percent of paper waste in Singapore is recycled, compared to seven percent of plastic waste, according to the National Environment Agency’s statistics. Most of the paper waste that isn’t recycled is food-related packaging that’s been contaminated by oil. Consumers who use our hangers can be confident that they will be recycled. In any case, our hangers are made of recycled paper to begin with.

We talk about being ideas driven because we like to frame problems in new ways where possible. For example, why not give consumers an alternative to the age-old, but non-biodegradable, plastic hangers? Why not offer marketers something offline that’s new, targeted and innovative? We have a few other ideas that we would like to try out in future, funds permitting!

BL: How does Bloomerang served as an advertising platform?
Wong Joon Ian: We distribute our hangers to four groups of people: independent travelers, university students, high-income households and gym-goers. This is achieved with our network of distribution partners, which includes drycleaners, student hostels, boutique hotels and gyms.

Across our four channels we work with more than 30 businesses and properties as distribution partners, and we are always adding more. Our partners are leaders in their class. They include The Gallery Hotel, The Hive and Habitat Hostel; Dryclean Express and The Laundry Boutique; Dynaforce gyms; and NUS and NTU hostels. Our channels reach about 8,000 university students, 5,000 independent travelers a month, and deliver some 16,000 impressions to gym-goers.

BL: What are the initial challenges in getting Bloomerang to market, for example, fundraising or marketing the product?
Wong Joon Ian: Educating marketers about the merits of an innovative new platform has been a challenge. Marketers (or their bosses!) are enthusiastic about the idea but, for various reasons, stop short of putting their money where their mouth is. While we can only speculate about the actual reasons, we think it’s mainly fear of new things.

As the saying goes, nobody ever got fired for buying IBM. In our case, replace IBM with SPH, Clearchannel or some other media giant.

So we try to make up for it by being flexible with what we can offer. We often go the extra mile in customising a client’s campaign for them — we don’t stop at receiving the advertising artwork and taking it to the printer. From creating a point-of-sale mechanism, to writing copy and enhancing artwork, we want to make sure our clients are rewarded for signing on with us.

BL: Bloomerang is registered as a trademark at Intellectual Property Office of Singapore. Can you share the process on how you get a trademark for your product and how difficult is it?
Wong Joon Ian: Our hanger design is design-registered at IPOS, and our company logo is trademarked there. Unlike most companies, we did the registration ourselves. The other people at the IPOS office were mainly couriers for various law firms, and the staff. We were the only people there actually registering our own stuff.

IPOS makes things relatively easy for users because it has a very comprehensive website and almost everything can be done online. But I say ‘relatively’ because for newbies like us, it was still a difficult process!

Here’s what Zhiwen did for design registration:

• Read this page of the IPOS website multiple times
• Put the hanger drawings onto a thumbdrive, along with a list of questions (Should we specify colours used in the hanger in the submission? Answer was no, because we don’t want to own the artwork printed on the hanger)
• Paid a few bucks to use the computer at the IPOS office on Bras Basah Rd
• Talked a helpful IPOS officer into walking us through the submission and answering our questions (technically IPOS staff aren’t supposed to give their opinions on submissions, in case they’re blamed for saying the wrong thing)
• Completed all the submissions at IPOS office computer and paid $250 for the design registration.

It was pretty much the same process for trademarks, except we also had to write a ’specification of goods/services’. This is based on the classes of goods and services under the Nice Classification system. What you want to end up with is a paragraph of legalese and many commas, saying in what industry your mark will be used, in what services and on what products.

We are registered in class 20 and 35. The specification for class 35 in our submission goes like this:

Advertising; dissemination of advertising matter; distribution of advertising materials, not being transport services; direct mail advertising; rental of advertising space; outdoor advertising; outdoor advertising services; production of advertising materials; provision of advertising space; business consultation relating to advertising; planning services for advertising; business management of advertising space; market research for advertising; display services; retail services in relation to advertising materials; all included in Class 35.

That can be a difficult paragraph to write if you’re not a lawyer and don’t really know what you’re doing, like us! Luckily, we had the help of some great IPOS staff and friends to guide us.

BL: What has the experience of designing Bloomerang has taught you?
Wong Joon Ian: Design is a continuous process. It taught us not to be satisfied with what we have, and to continue adapting to the circumstances as required.

BL: So, what’s next for Bloomerang now?
Wong Joon Ian: The fourth iteration of our hanger is being developed now, with help from the NUS School of Design and Environment. As we continue to refine the design, we plan to retail the hangers in addition to offering them as an advertising platform. We’ve had many requests for a retail version of the hanger, and we will be ready to meet those requests when we’ve hit on the right design and production formula. We are also building our sales leads for advertising in the meantime.

BL: In your opinion, what are the three most important traits of an entrepreneur?
Wong Joon Ian:

1. Simple ideas can effect change. It doesn’t have to be high-tech, or a world-changing concept.
2. Form your own opinions. Since we started we have received a lot of advice, whether sought after or given freely. Do your homework and form your own opinions from there.
3. Sincerity and humility. Not to fall too much in love with yourself or your own idea. Be ready to adapt.

BL: Joon Ian, thank you so much for this interview. We wish Zhiwen and you good luck in the Bloomerang venture. Do let us know of any new developments and news on your social enterprise.

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Barcamp Singapore 4 was just over. During the event, I made a presentation on “Building Online Communities for Non-Profit Organizations”, which focus on how non-profit organizations can either leveraging on existing large social networks (for e.g. Facebook Pages for Oxfam GB/US or Causes) or built their own to fulfil their strategic objectives (Kiva.org which focus on micro-lending for entrepreneurs in developing nations), for example, fundraising, creating awareness and canvassing community volunteers. Finally, I end with a local example, Give.SG, where one of the co-founders declared during my talk that their platform will be up soon within a month. One of the most important lessons which is not evident from the slides is that I focus on is that building online communities should be a means that can transition your cause into the offline and it is important to find a way to move offline to gather and canvass for your non-profit social cause. Here are the slides where you can check out the talk:

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