While his friends partied, this entrepreneur slogged to build a global racing company

When Daniel Charles, the founder and CEO of Global Racing Schools, first decided to get into the racing business, he wanted to open a race track in Singapore. But he realized it would cost about half a billion dollars.

“That may not be the best place to start,” he thought. He decided to scale down, and considered starting a go-cart track instead. But that proved too daunting as well.

Finally, he settled on becoming a dealer for motorsports products. Slogging his way through, Daniel, at 25 years old now, has built Global Racing Schools into a company that connects leisure and professional racers to driving experiences by over 200 suppliers in 20 countries.

“I remember an entrepreneur talking on television about the right way to get into an industry: ‘Don’t focus on getting the whole body in. Start with the toe’,” he says, “if you want to be a DJ, start by carrying amps around. If you want to be the next Zuckerberg, start by hanging around the right places and events.”

Today, the young entrepreneur has offices in Singapore, Australia, and the United States. The avid Formula One fan, looking every bit a professional racer himself with designer shades, watch, and a racing polo-tee, has handled between two to three thousand customers ever since the company was started in 2008. Read more

Women Entrepreneurs on the Web, by Google and Athena Network, comes to Singapore

If you’re a woman entrepreneur or professional and want to pick up skills to help your business succeed in the online world, Google and Athena Network Singapore has something for you.

Women Entrepreneurs on the Web (WeOW), an initiative by both organizations, will kick-off in June, with the launch party on 31st May. The event was first started by Google in India and saw over 300 female executives and entrepreneurs participate. Read more

SPRING Singapore to startup: Stop misusing our logo and name

SPRING Singapore, a government organization dedicated to growing the country’s economy, issued a terse statement yesterday denouncing Interesting Mart, an online reseller of IT goods, for misusing its logo and name and that of its subsidiary, SPRING SEEDS Capital. Read more

Eat this, tech purists: Aunty Binnaz reads fortunes from coffee cups, makes a killing

Technology startups are today’s entrepreneurial rockstars. Not a week goes by without an announcement of a new location-based app, niche social network, or online travel discovery service.

But like many hard-luck musicians, these startups burn bright at the beginning, relying on the quick fix of seed or venture funding, only to fade later on.

That’s because they are still searching for a business model, and until then, they can’t be legitimately called a sustainable business.

In the midst of this fever, Aunty Binnaz is an online service that stands out for modernizing an un-sexy industry — fortune-telling. Yes, I’m talking about psychic reading of the tarot-card, astrology sort.

Except in this case, Aunty Binnaz’s main product is coffee-cup reading, a popular form of fortune telling in Turkey. Read more

Home24.sg, Rocket Internet’s furniture store, will launch tomorrow, says insider

Provided there are no unexpected delays, Home24.sg, an online furniture by the Samwer Brother’s Rocket Internet, will launch in Singapore tomorrow. SGE received the news from a company insider, who declined to be named.

We’ve also received details and screenshots (below) of the alpha version of the site. Based on what we know, Home24.sg will offer about 5,000 variations of houseware, kitchenware, tableware, and lighting items. Their inventory will consist of a mix of local and foreign brands.

Customers will not be charged for delivery to their homes. They will also receive a refund if they find that the same item is priced lower in any other major retailer, or if the product does not suit their homes. The offer is valid within seven days of purchase. There are no delivery charges for refunds too.

(Read: Are the Samwer Brothers’s Rocket Internet really that bad for Southeast Asia?)

Home24.sg will face competition from other online furniture retailers like Courts, BEDS.sg, and Furnituremart.sg. Read more

Responding to Google Drive, Insync shifts focus to power users, paid app

The creators of Insync, an app that offers Dropbox-like functionality to Google Docs users, have responded to the launch of Google Drive.

More than two weeks ago, I wrote that Insync is at risk of becoming redundant, since Google Drive replicates some of its features. Although Insync is the superior app for now, it’s only a matter of time before Google starts adding more features to its new offering.

In response, Insync announced two days ago that it will focus on Google Docs power and business users. Also, once it moves out of beta and into version 1.0, Insync will become a paid app with a free 30-day trial. Users will still be able to use Insync for Mac and Windows for free via a referral program. More details will be announced soon. Read more

As profit soars, SingTel goes shopping in India and China

SingTel, Southeast Asia’s largest mobile carrier, is looking to potentially acquire non-phone businesses in China and India, in a move away from slow-growth markets in Singapore and Australia, reported Bloomberg.

In a statement released last week, the phone company mentioned that it may raise its stakes in its Asian and African associaties, as well as make other “strategic investments”. The company also reported a 30 percent jump in fourth-quarter profit, at S$1.29B (US$1B), in the three months preceding 21st March. Read more

First-ever Walkabout Singapore draws young, diverse crowd

At ViKi, a staff runs a visitor through what the company does.

Palpable tension was present just before Blk 71 opened their doors to visitor for Walkabout Singapore, held last Friday.

As I sat in one of the offices with Kristine and Vinnie Lauria, co-organizers of the event, we wondered how many people would actually show up. Sure, there were 550 email signups, but there’s no telling how many of them might actually appear at a particular venue.

The worries were soon put to rest. Chatter filled the empty hallways, and a bunch of students stood outside the office, peeking in curiously. Time to get to work.

Held for the first time in Singapore, Walkabout is a one-day event where startups open their doors and bags of potato chips to curious visitors. The event originated with Walkabout New York City, and attempts to replicate the open-door, collaborative nature of Silicon Valley. Read more

Hong Kong’s Frenzoo raises US$1M to create 3D lifestyle mobile games for women

Frenzoo, a Hong Kong-based startup that has developed a series of 3D lifestyle and fashion games targeted at girls, has raised US$1M in seed funding from investors in Asia, Europe, and the United States.

Investors include: Efficient Corporate, the investment vehicle of Hong Kong-based angel investor Tytus Michalski; Siemer Ventures, an early-stage, cross-border venture firm with offices in Los Angeles and Asia; K5 Ventures, a pan Europe and Asia-based group focused on media and commerce; and Metaverse Services, a China-based leader in game content creation.

Existing investor Ambient Sound Investments, an early stage venture firm backed by the founding engineers of Skype, has also participated in this round. Read more

Singapore tops Mobile Payments Readiness Index, Philippines second in Southeast Asia

Singapore is the most mobile payment-ready nation in the world, according the the Mobile Payments Readiness Index by MasterCard. Philippines came in second in Southeast Asia, followed by Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam, and Indonesia.

The Index gauges the readiness of 34 countries across the globe in three different categories: Peer-to-peer, mobile commerce, and point-of-sale. An overall score was given for each country, with a score of 60 indicating an inflection point where a country is ready for the mass adoption of mobile payment. Read more