Cupcakes from Teacosy are sold alongside angel figurines and furniture.

As technology advances and business concepts evolve, an increasing number of F&B entrepreneurs and service solution providers are thinking out-of-the-box and making life easier for customers.

By innovating, F&B entrepreneurs enjoy reduced overheads, better customer service and additional revenue. Customers feel more satisfied too. In this article, we chart four recent trends in the F&B industry that have dramatically improved how businesses are run.

If you’re a restaurateur or cafe owner, do look at these trends and consider implementing them in your business.

Managing orders wirelessly

The wireless paging system from Food Icon.

Customers often struggle to get the attention of busy waitresses. Staff also find the handling of order tickets a struggle at times.

To solve these problems, food eateries are adopting new wireless communication devices from companies like Food Icon to make the ordering process a breeze. Swensen’s and Aston Express are some of its customers.

One of its products, Wi-Serve, is a paging service that allows restaurant operators to quickly and easily contact their patrons. It can be used to inform customers when an order is ready to be collected or when a table is available.

Consisting of one transmitter with many handheld coaster pagers, restaurant operators can enter the pager number into the transmitter and press ‘send’, allowing patrons to receive the alert on their coaster pagers immediately.

Says Vincent Shi, co-founder of the company: “The increasingly tight labour market is a strain on the F&B industry. Paging technology can help F&B operators improve productivity and efficiency in spite of limited manpower.”

“Matured countries such as Japan and Korea which encountered manpower shortage many years before Singapore, are heavily reliant on paging technology in their F&B industry.”

F&B outlets are no longer just selling food

Running mixed businesses from the same outlet is becoming a more popular trend among F&B operators. TeaCosy is one example: It serves comfort food and sells angel figurines, lifestyle accessories and classic vintage furniture at the same time.

Daphne Tan, owner of Teacosy, has two retail partners housed within its premises: Ten Thousand Angels (angel figurines, lifestyle accessories) and A Thousand Tales (Scandinavian retro furniture).

“We were all friends to begin with and found that each had our strengths to offer which complemented the space we had. We wanted to offer something unique and niche for consumers, especially those who shop for the angels in-store because they come in and marvel at the ambiance. We also give them an opportunity to dine in-house.”

Pocket Full Of Posies, another unique concept store in the form of a floral retail cum café has outlets in VivoCity and Plaza Singapura.

From the very beginning, they’ve merged both concepts into one as economics dictated it. They worked with the landlords who were able to think-out-of-the-box and allow a unit to be mixed-use.

Online reservations are making restaurants more efficient

Reserveit.sg is a pioneer of online restaurant reservation in Singapore.

When competing with a crowd of hungry diners, the best way to get into a restaurant is to reserve a table. But finding the right restaurant and then making a reservation isn’t always easy. That is where online reservation websites like Reserveit.sg and Chope are built to the benefit of both diners and F&B operators.

Reserveit.sg enables diners to search for the most suitable restaurant, reserve a table, and receive confirmation almost instantly. This differs greatly from the usual telephone call to book a table.

Jesper Gustafsson, director of business development, says: “We have seen a steady increase both in participating restaurants and members on our website. It is only in Asia that restaurants and diners have not utilised this tool for their mutual benefit, convenience and efficiency.”

Describing the benefits that such technology entails, he says: “Using such a system helps diners eliminate time calling multiple restaurants, not having their calls answered, waiting for the email reply in vain or worry that the staff didn’t take the reservation down accurately.”

He adds: “Restaurant operators increase their revenue by getting more reservations and are able to organize their restaurant and optimise seating times and seating arrangements in ways not possible with the pen-and-paper system that they are used to.”

Payments over the cloud

Ordering and paying for food at eateries is becoming simpler and more convenient with the integration of new technology into the ordering process. A good case study would be eOrderNPay, a cloud-based menu ordering and payment solution developed by B-Secure Technologies and Swiff.

eOrderNPay cuts down waiting time for diners by providing interactive e-menus, as well as a faster checkout and payment process. F&B operators would also gain from a reduction in overheads and indirectly provide better customer service in terms of shorter waiting time and an efficient order-payment system.

Here’s how the system works:

• Customers browse the eMenu, select his choices and place his orders all from a tablet.
• Payment transactions takes seven seconds to complete with a tap and swipe of a credit card over 3G or WiFi. The transaction is highly secure and authenticated.
• An eReceipt will be sent to the customer’s email account instantaneously.

Conclusion

Restaurateurs and café owners have been traditionally slow to adapt new technology. But that is slowly changing.

Helped by the rising ubiquity of 3G and WiFi Internet access, and also the openness of younger entrepreneurs who are less resistant to technology and different business models, the F&B industry is prime for a shake-up.

Rising rental costs do also play a part — entrepreneurs are forced to think out of the box and merge seemingly disparate businesses into one.

About the author

Julian Abraham Chua is a freelance writer whose works were featured in Strait Times’s Youthink section previously and regularly writes for various magazines including NTUC Lifestyle, Spin Asia, Timeout Singapore and Campus Magazine.  Graduating from Nanyang Polytechnic not too long ago and majoring in business management, he along with his friends, started a company YTY Group and is now an established entreprenuer with his own distribution business in gifts and stationery. His passion for the pen was ignited when he started writing for his polytchinic’s online news portal and interviewed various rising sports stars including footballer Hariss Harun and national gymnast Lim Heem Wei.

It was not a happy year for big bookstores.

In August and September 2011, Borders closed both its outlets in Wheelock Place and Parkway Parade. In October, Computer Book Centre, at Funan IT Mall, followed suit, becoming an exclusively online business.

More bad news followed in December: Home-grown book retailer Page One announced that it will close its store in VivoCity on 19th February this year in VivoCity due to high rentals. The company has been incurring major losses since its opening in 2006.

The trend continued this year, when Harris Bookstore, which is owned by Popular Holdings, told the press that its Great World City outlet will cease operating, coincidentally, on 19th February. High rentals, again, was to blame.

Harris is now left with one outlet in 313@Somerset, after the company’s Jurong Point bookstore shuttered for good in 2011.

The rate of closure of bookstores recently has been startling. That’s six stores in seven months.

But while the stated reason has been the unforgiving rentals, I suspect it’s masking the true cause — their revenue just isn’t enough to cushion any spike in rentals. The profit margins, it seems, just isn’t what it used to be.

While it’s difficult to determine whether the Internet and the increasing popularity of e-books have directly resulted in the declining sales of physical books, I can safely say that the golden age for mass book retailers has long passed.

Why waste two hours making a trip down to a bookstore when I can easily find what I want on Amazon and get it shipped to my house? Why carry ten books around when I can store a hundred on my iPad?

Physical books will never go extinct, that’s for sure. Just like how radio stations are continuing to exist today in spite of the television and the Internet. Some people will always prefer the experience of flipping through a physical book. But this group is a diminishing breed.

Meanwhile, small, independent bookstores seem to be hanging on. What a turnaround from more than decade ago, when movies like You’ve Got Mail portrayed independent bookstores as being threatened by retail giants.

In Singapore, small book retailers like BooksActually, Woods in the Books, and The Pigeonhole continue to draw a cult following. BooksActually has even experienced a 30 percent sales increase since last year, the owner told The New Paper.

But as consumers continually warm to the idea of e-books, online retailers, and their obvious benefits, will independent bookstores eventually come under threat too?

How these small businesses innovate is key.

The Pigeonhole’s business model may possess some answers. It does much more than sell books — it bills itself as a multi-use space for holding events and dining in. It’s a place that provides a cosy environment for people to eat and network, thereby addressing a fundamental need. These activities can never be totally replaced by the Internet, not for the foreseeable future.

BooksActually is adopting a different strategy to stay afloat. Instead of just stocking books, it has positioned itself as an important facilitator for the growth of the Singapore literary scene. It provides a venue for events like writing workshops and also acts as a publisher of local works.

The company also stocks eclectic items and memorabilia which brings to consumers a sense of nolstagia. I remember visiting an outlet once and coming across vintage Pez dispensers and “country erasers”, which has doubled as a childhood game that is popular among boys.

The pleasant experience of browsing the store and discovering these little delights is an intangible element that online retailers can’t quite duplicate. In a country where important landmarks are frequently bulldozed over, BooksActually provides customers a sense of rootedness to an increasingly murky past.

What is clear is that physical bookstores that only serve the utilitarian function of selling books will not do well in the digital age. If browsing is all customers want to do, they’d might as well do it online with a web browser and the search button.

Therefore, modern book retailers must think harder about how to entice customers to their stores. Just “selling stuff” doesn’t quite cut it anymore.

Kinokuniya, Times, and MPH should consider themselves warned.

Photo: Chicago Geek

Imagine a world where all co-working spaces around the world are linked to a talent marketplace. That is the promise of Coworkify, an upcoming Facebook app from Japan which lets users find talent and like-minded people in co-working spaces outside of their own.

The team won the grand prize at Startup Weekend Kyoto 2011, and the founder, Kenshin Fujiwara, told SGE that they are actively partnering with co-working spaces globally. He’s also looking for beta testers to try the app, which is now still in development.

“Already, some space owners from Poland, Germany, Brazil, US, Korea, Australia and so on have agreed to join,” he said.

A major feature of the app is the talent marketplace, divided into “wills” and “wants”. It’s essentially an online classifieds.

Wills is a section for job seekers to publicize their skills and how much they are charging. Wants works the reverse way — allowing users to call for expertise.  Unclear at this point is whether there’s a notification feature to allow people to automatically receive inquiries.

Besides a jobs marketplace, the app would include other features like the ability to locate users in their co-working spaces, and tools for co-working space owners to manage their own members.

Co-working spaces is a global phenomena that has arisen as a result of changing work lifestyles. In Japan, for example, the massive tsunami that devastated the country in 2011 resulted in a shift of attitudes towards more work-life balance and flexible work arrangements.

Globally, this is happening too. With the increasingly ubiquity of smartphones, tablets, and cloud-based services, coupled with a greater desire for more flexible lifestyles, more workers now operate independently without being tied to a particular company.

The rise of these Internet entrepreneurs and freelancers has led to a demand for co-working spaces shared between many individuals, which eliminates the isolation they would otherwise face.

This phenomenon is also happening in Singapore. At last count, there are at least seven co-working spaces in the country, and probably more shared offices.

For more information, you can check out their Facebook Page, Twitter profile, or blog (which has an interesting series on co-working spaces around the world).

There were plenty of distractions at Startups in Asia, the first-ever tech startup event organized by Asian tech blog Penn Olson — including a couple of Kimono-clad ladies and helpers in tight skirts.

But the star of the show remained the Startup Arena, a pitching competition where 19 startups vied for the top prize of a US$10,000 check, as well as some Lenovo laptops and Nokia Lumia 800 mobile phones.

The winner, announced yesterday, on day two of the conference, turned out to be Singapore-based startup Teamie, which is building a social learning platform that aims to make learning more fun, social, and intuitive.

The judges for the competition consists of investors and entrepreneurs like Ash Singh, CEO at InteractiveSG (which is producing Angel’s Gate), Daniel Saito, co-founder at SkySQL and an angel investor, Eric Koh, CTO at Jobscentral and partner at Iconic Ventures, and James Tan, co-founder of 55tuan (his experience in China) and managing partner at Quest VC.

Teamie, founded by Shivanu Shukla and Ashwin Singh, is building a tool that allows students to collaborate with one another, complete quizzes, and submit assignments. Teachers can also use Teamie to track and analyse student performance, as well as grade assignments.

There’s even some gamification elements thrown in: Students will be placed on a leaderboard and ranked according to how much they interact with others.

Teamie hopes to target two industries: The education sector, which consists of universities and private schools, and also the corporate training sector.

First runner-up:  Innova Tech (Singapore)

Prizes were also given to the runner-ups. In second place was Innova Tech, a startup which has the simple aim of preventing you from losing your stuff.

To achieve this, it uses a really thin black device (picture), which can be slipped into a wallet, bag, or even taped to a child. Paired with a smartphone app, the phone will ring once the user steps too far away from the black device. The distance is customizable.

What happens if a user misses the ring? They will be able to track the last known location of the lost item on the app, which is integrated with Google Maps.

Already, the device has already garnered US$10,000 in sales after being placed on IndieGogo, a US-based crowdsourcing platform. It retails at US$30.

The device is certainly useful, but I find that there are some limitations. If I want to obtain multiple cards for use in my wallet, passport, and briefcase at once, I’m not sure if the app can sync with three devices at the same time.

And even if it can, I would have to pay a total of US$90 for three of the devices — which is prohibitive.

Rick Tan went missing when it was his turn to collect the prize during the awards ceremony however. Perhaps he should have used the device on himself.

Second runner-up: Start Now (Singapore)

Coming in third is Start Now, a social enterprise that has launched a free-to-use platform that makes it easier for NGOs to find volunteers and vice-versa.

What I like about Start Now is the comprehensiveness of their platform — NGOs have tools to group volunteers, send out notifications to them, and create events. They are also working on a feature that tracks the performance of each volunteer to allow NGOs to identify who can be relied upon.

Volunteers, on the other hand, can tick certain preferences to receive notifications about the kind of activities they would like to be involved in.

Start Now hopes to generate revenue by charging corporations on a per seat basis to use the platform, as well as charging NGOs for using their pro plan. They are also getting into targeted ads, cause marketing, and building custom CSR sites.

So far, they have gained some traction, attaining over 18,000 users in a four-day span. Admittedly, these sign-ups are retrieved from the email databases of 42 non-profits — so we have no idea how many active users are there.

They are looking to expand overseas as well. Through a partnership with Peking University, they will launch a China version of the site, called kaishi.com.

Fourth and fifth place: Waffle (South Korea) and Piktochart (Malaysia)

Wi-fi can really be a pain-in-the-ass sometimes. Waffle hopes to make it easier for users to log in to a public Wi-Fi network — by just signing in to Facebook or Twitter. The user would then be checking-in and promoting the restaurant or cafe on a social network — all at the same time.

Picktochart hopes to solve another problem altogether. Infographics are all the rage now, not just because they are a fad, but because they make data easier to digest and absorb. Yet, for those without design or Photoshop skills, creating a beautiful infographic is at best an aspiration. To address this, Picktochart has created a web app that lets users easily create highly-customizable infographics.

The other finalists: Mockups, Dr Pad, Flocations, Panoplaza, Vibease, CloudyRec, Gspot, SecQMe, Gushcloud, Justaple, Sakebii, Spelldial, Acheevit, and Phroni.

More photos from the event

Which participants from the Startup Arena were you excited about? Share your thoughts with us!

Do Singapore banks measure up in the eyes of start-up entrepreneurs?

In Singapore, it looks like OCBC is the most popular bank among start-up entrepreneurs for creating a business account. That is the result of a poll SGE did on Facebook and LinkedIn in which 127 entrepreneurs responded.

Here’s what we asked them: “As a start-up founder in Singapore, which bank do you go to and set up your local account?”

Actually, OCBC is the leading bank by a mile — at 45 percent of the respondents. The others — DBS (17 percent), UOB (15 percent), and Standard Chartered (13 percent) — were not even close.

With such a yawning gap, it’s easy to assume that OCBC is the best choice for every entrepreneur — but that’s not necessary the case. To find out more, we dug a little deeper — speaking to entrepreneurs and comparing the different banks ourselves.

Banking services designed for start-ups?

Looking at the surface, only three out of the top four banks — namely, OCBC, DBS, and StanChart — have products designed for and marketed at upstart companies.

OCBC has the Business Entrepreneur Account, which offers a low initial deposit of S$500, instant account opening, and unlimited free cheques. DBS has the Entrepreneur’s Account for Start-ups, which also offers a minimum deposit of S$500, two year’s free subscription to their online banking portal, and more.

StanChart, meanwhile, has Essential Lite, which has no minimum balance requirement.

But all four banks (including UOB) offer company debit cards, which is crucial especially for Internet start-ups.

“For small businesses that purchase a lot of services and products on the Internet, for example, hosting, domain names, crowdsourced design, and so on, this is almost essential these days,” said Francis Teo, founder of Bluelambda, an SEO consultancy firm. He owns two business bank accounts at OCBC and DBS.

To Jason How, an entrepreneur who picked StanChart, the lack of a minimum balance requirement was a factor. “It makes one less worry for me,” he said.

Online banking services are important…

Many of the entrepreneurs that SGE polled have Internet businesses. In that regard, online banking services are something they really scrutinize. The consensus is that OCBC’s online banking platform is the most terrible of the bunch.

Said Francis: “To export a CSV file of your transactions, you basically need to queue your request in the system and then come back and download it later.”

CSV is a commonly used, widely supported file format to store numbers and text in tables. On the other hand, the export process for DBS is rather painless, he said.

Both banks, however, have crucial shortcomings. One of them is the inability to export bank statements in Quicken format, which is used by many SMEs. Francis added that start-ups often bootstrap their accounting operations and that the Quicken format is highly supported among affordable cloud-based solutions such as Xero.com, which he uses.

“Having to export the CSV, ‘tweak’ the information so it can be imported should be unnecessary.  Instead, the banks support export in SWIFT MT940.  I’m not sure if this format is popular amongst SMEs at all,” he said.

Browser support is also limited for both banks, especially on Mac. The Safari and Chrome browsers aren’t supported.

“We are no longer in the age where websites of any kind can be designed for a specific browser or platform, as browser standards are pretty consistent these days. The banks seem to be stuck in the stone age in this area.  On top of that, the platforms seem to be running on JSP, which is platform independent and should be able to run on any modern browser,” he said.

Francis is also unhappy that the banks only allows him to export data that is two to three months old. Since many SMEs do accounting on an annual basis, being able to export more than year’s worth of transactions would be a useful feature.

“If we neglect to export it every month, we’ll have to do data entry from the printed statement, which in my opinion is silly because the data is already readily available in electronic format in the bank’s database.”

DBS only allows users to reprint statements for a fee and are not able to provide file-based exports other than scans, he added.

Finally, Francis is unhappy with OCBC’s online security. To be more specific, he felt that the bank should use an enhanced premium SSL certificate that verifies both the identity of the website owner and encrypts data.  Otherwise, customers are vulnerable to hackers masquerading as the real OCBC site.

“The risk is probably low, but this is unacceptable security-wise for a financial institution,” he added.

…but don’t forget counter services too

While new-fangled online banking services are important to a new generation of Internet entrepreneurs, traditional counter services should be looked into as well.

Felix Sim, founder of Playlor!, a social sports platform (see feature), is an advocate of UOB’s banking services. His reason? He was able to open a business banking account at the bank within an hour.

“I had my company documents with me at that time and the branch manager was extremely helpful and customer-centric. He explained all there is to know about opening a business banking account with UOB, and he then got me a queue number with the customer service officer who opened my account on the spot,” he said.

On the other hand, he wasn’t impressed by StanChart, which did not open an account for him even after one month of back-and-forth.

Ease of obtaining loans from banks

Jason, however, is a happy customer with StanChart. Besides being impressed with their online banking platform, the major selling point for StanChart is that it is more “pro-SME” than the rest, especially in loaning out cash. While some have observed that Singapore banks in general are reluctant to help companies with less than $2 million in revenue, his experience was different.

“They listen out to SMEs and start-ups if they require loans, definitely more than DBS,” he said. When he sounded the bank out on a possible loan, they were the most ready to respond to Jason. StanChart also offers a lower interest rate for start-ups, something that DBS doesn’t do.

“DBS wouldn’t mind loaning us money, but the rate would simply be the same as normal,” he added.

On the other hand, Tan Boon Teck, founder of co-working space MakeSpace.sg, felt that DBS was rather responsive. He told us on Facebook that he was able to obtain a microloan and business loan in 2005 within two weeks, despite just starting a company with no track record then.

Avoid HSBC at all cost

So the consensus is that OCBC, StanChart, and DBS are the institutions to beat when it comes to banking for start-ups. While UOB is quite popular, it doesn’t seem like they are doing a lot of marketing geared towards the start-up space. Even their website doesn’t provide a lot of information.

What’s worse is that when I tried calling the UOB hotline the entire afternoon to find out more information, no one answered.

My only guess is that the UOB hotline is too hot to handle, because they can’t pick up the line.

You can strike them off the list.

As for the other three banks, OCBC is the one to avoid if you are a heavy user of online banking services, although Felix noted that the queue at the OCBC Jurong East branch is horrendous. Which means you might have difficulty getting things done even if you like to visit the bank yourself.

Meanwhile, StanChart is the bank to go for if having fast access to loans is a priority for your start-up. But in terms of customer service, StanChart and OCBC appear to be inconsistent as far as approving account openings go.

HSBC should definitely be avoided. It scored low on our poll for good reason — according to Felix, he was told to pay a $5,000 account opening fee, which made him “speechless”.

Finally, it’s interesting to note that while DBS seemed to be the only bank to offer a company debit card a few years back, that has changed. Now, all the top four banks offer the same service.

What’s encouraging is that start-up entrepreneurs do have plenty of choice with regards to starting a new bank account.

It’s clear that the competition between banks have benefited businesses in Singapore.

Photo: AIM Neutron

Chaos Gate will be released in China in April this year.

Developing computer games is risky business. More so, if you’re creating a Massively Multiplayer Online Role-playing Game (MMORPG), which requires a massive investment in capital and time.

But that is the risk Singapore-based Time Voyager‘s founder and CEO Chris Loo is willing to take. By developing their first title — Chaos Gate  – for the fast-growing China market, they could potentially reap big rewards. Last year, a report revealed that sales from the China games market reached US$7B last year, a 32.4 percent year-on-year increase.

Time Voyager’s risk-taking spirit is something Canon’s Think Big campaign aims to promote. Think Big encourages entrepreneurs to not just earn a profit, but also to expand their business horizons by doing what was thought to be impossible.

For Chris, this meant venturing beyond local shores to develop a full-fledged MMORPG game from scratch, a category that is dominated by established game developers from the US, Japan, South Korea, and China.

He is certainly no wide-eyed neophyte, and has no illusions about the challenges of the gaming industry. Even big name game studios flounder from time to time.

“The survival rate for MMORPG games under development is very low. According to my opinion of the market, three out of four developments will fail before closed beta, and another 50 percent of the remaining commercialized MMORPGs will have mediocre results. It’s a high-risk endeavor,” he said.

But with the right approach, he believes Chaos Gate, which will be free to play, can do well in the China market when it launches there in April.

Already, it’s off to a promising start. Kingsoft, a top ten games publisher in China, has picked up the title. They will handle the game’s marketing push in the country.

What sets Chaos Gate apart from other MMORPGs is that it caters to casual, intermediate, and hardcore players at the same time by adopting the best features from games that target the various market segments.

Casual games that find it hard to play the game with both the keyboard and the mouse — a standard configuration in 3D games — can navigate around using just the mouse. If they want to complete a quest, they can set their avatar to ‘autorun’ to the quest location.

Hardware requirements are also quite lenient — a gamer doesn’t really need the latest rig or state-of-the-art internet connection to run Chaos Gate smoothly. This is a crucial step to ensure widespread adoption of the game in China, since high-end machines and lightning-fast internet connections are out-of-reach to the average consumer.

Hardcore gamers who like more of a challenge can revert back to the keyboard and mouse combo, complete high-level quests that require teamwork between players, and collect armor that have cool special effects when worn as a set. The armor pieces can also be progressively upgraded.

The game also has social media elements embedded in it. Players can easily share about their achievements and conquests on platforms like Facebook.

What’s important in any RPG title is the story, and Chaos Gate seems to have an interesting premise: In the not-too-distant future, aliens have invaded earth, and the only way to save it is to travel back in time to retrieve special stones that can help save the planet.

These unique features underscore Time Voyager’s desire to set itself apart from the competition. The ability to innovate and redefine an industry is another trait Canon Think Big aims to encourage in Singaporean entrepreneurs.

Chris Loo, founder and CEO of Time Voyager.

With the game on the cusp of commercialization, it’s easy to forget that Time Voyager’s three-year, well, voyage from idea to product was not exactly a walk in the park.

Hiring and keeping top talent in China was a challenge. While the company now has about 40 staff in China which mainly handles art and content creation, the most crucial step was hiring the first guy.

“In China, staff need a strong leader to make decisions and resolve disagreements. Once you hire good top people that are renowned in the industry, the rest will follow,” Chris said.

He added that hiring talent people starts with a long process of courtship and relationship building.
“The work environment is very family-based. Potential employees want to know that you can be trusted.”

Interestingly, Time Voyager’s ability to retain talent was a factor in Kingsoft’s decision to pick up Chaos Gate. In the Chinese gaming industry, company loyalty is hard to come by. A lot of game developers are ambitious and want to be ahead of the pack.

This is even more pronounced if they have peers who are doing exceptionally well in hot-selling game titles.

Therefore, in such a competitive environment, the rate of poaching is very high.

“Kingsoft likes game studios who have the ability to keep people,” he said. “They adopted a wait-and-see attitude at first, visited our studio every month and monitored our progress.”

“But eventually, they were quite happy with what we’re doing.”

There are differences between the Chinese and US gaming markets too.

In China, for example, gamers tend to be a little bit more impatient. They want their characters to be well-dressed at the beginning, otherwise they’ll be turned off. They also want to reap rewards more quickly. US gamers, on the other hand, prefer a more gradual approach, and have a greater need to feel some sense of achievement.

There’s also a difference in the approach towards marketing games. In China, Internet cafes are popular, and many young people flock to these places. As a result, publishers need to incentivize these cafes to install their games, and hope that players are hooked on it.

In more developed countries, however, gamers usually have their own computers at home. The marketing methods needed to reach these gamers changes drastically.

By understanding the market deeply, working hard to retain good staff, and creating a differentiated product, Time Voyager hopes to create the next big thing in the Chinese gaming market.

Time will tell if they can achieve their aims.

But whatever happens, Chris is right up there with the other entrepreneurs promoted by Canon Think Big — flying the Singapore flag abroad and doing the country proud with their vision and boldness.

This article is sponsored by:

Guided by its kyosei philosophy that focuses on “living and working together for the common good”, Canon is dedicated to producing innovative products and technologies to improve efficiency at home and in the office. It is committed to steering its research and manufacturing processes towards sustainability, providing a safe and healthy workplace, and delivering high quality products to its customers. Read more about Canon’s Think Big campaign.

He has run the company for a few years and found it difficult to run multiple companies, so he has decided to sell one and focus on running the other.

He approached us for advice on how to sell his company and value his business. To begin, we collected a few facts so we could get a sense of what kind of business we are selling.

1. Operating for five years;
2. Less than $100,000 in revenue per annum;
3. No retail sales. All sales are B2B;
4. Trademark on the name;
5. No patents;
6. No ownership of manufacturing plants or equipment;
7. Three months of inventory on hand.

Despite the slow sales, the owners believe the product has potential. Sales have been slow because the business lacks attention, which when put in place, will yield results. The product is unique, well-packaged and well-received by buyers.

Here are the two type of buyers who may look at their business.

Enter Buyer A

Buyer A buys businesses based on future revenues. Buyer A is prepared to forgo earning now for bigger pay-offs later.

They will want to see patents, trademarks, exclusive licenses and distribution agreements. These kinds of assets provide assurances of future revenue.

However, the business for sale does not offer this kind of protection.

The product has a cutting edge design, but the design offers no barriers to entry. As soon as the product proves successful, it is likely to be copied by competitors.

Enter Buyer B

Buyer B wants a business with healthy profits now. This buyer wants to see a proven track record of sales, and assurances that the success is repeatable in the future.

Buyer B wants three years of sales history and three-year sales projections.

Buyer B bases his valuations on profits made today and in the past, not on the potential of the company. So it is important the business has a healthy profit and loss sheet.

The business for sale however does not have a fat P+L. It is making small profits and less than $100k revenue per year. All the sales are made through a B2B channel, which does not provide a retail buyer proof the product will sell in a B2C channel.

Ready for the truth?

It is important your business clearly addresses one of these buyers. Most buyers in Asia fit the Buyer B profile. They are attracted by companies with valuations above a million dollars, as anything smaller is not worth their time.

Unfortunately this business is attractive to neither investor.

Here’s why.

Neither buyer perceives value. Neither can see what they are buying. The old truth that nobody buys anything which is not valuable holds true.

Buyer A sees no potential and no proof the designs can be protected against copycats. Buyer B sees a part-time business with small profits.

The most the seller can hope to be paid for an exchange of ownership is the sum of its cash in the bank, accounts receivable (assuming these debts can be collected) and stock on hand.

The net gain for the seller is zero, less the cost of selling and marketing the business to the buyers.

In short, if you are in this position, you are best not to sell, but to trade out of your debts and strike the company off. Or you can continue to trade until such point in time when you can demonstrate the business has value.

Demonstrating value — an alternative path

If you believe you have a great product and have already achieved moderate success, here’s an alternative way to attract a buyer.

It’s simple. You need to build a case and prove to a potential buyer that the product has value.

Consider licensing your product to a retail distributor who is already carrying a similar line and is confident they can build market share.

Finding the retail distributor may involve looking internationally to new markets. In the example above, the client’s product will sell better in newsagents throughout Australia.

Step 1 – Pilot

Secure a minimum order from a retail distributor — say 10,000 units. If you are landing the products from abroad, use a letter of credit or similar financial instrument to facilitate payment.

You can also use the purchase order supplied by the retail distributor as collateral to secure a short-term loan from a bank if you need finance to bankroll the cost of goods sold.

Normally retail mark-up on cost of goods sold is 100 percent, and you can expect to be paid seven days after the product has landed. It is a good idea to meet the retail distributor when they take possession and check the goods for quality.

Step 2 – Reorders and licensing

If the pilot is successful, the retail distributor will want to reorder. Repeat orders are important because they demonstrate to a buyer the business has value.

The retail distributor may decide to take on more risk and responsibility by licensing the product from you. Under a license agreement they agree to produce, distribute and sell a number of units per year, and pay you a royalty, calculated as a percentage of sales (one to five percent).

This can be as attractive as selling the company, as you have few operation responsibilities, but retain executive power when it comes to making important business decisions.

An exclusive or non-exclusive license agreement will also attract buyers who see an investment which offers fewer risks and more returns. The company is making sales, and has some guarantee of future revenue.

Step 3 – Sell the business

The buyer could come from different parts of the retail value chain. They might be a manufacturer from a similar industry, looking to diversify their suite of products. Equally the retail distributor who holds the license agreement, may also be a potential buyer.

Drafting a profile of the buyer is important. You have to know who you are selling to and tailor the pitch to that buyer to secure the sale. The buyer profile depends on a few variables including the valuation of the company, industry, complexity of operations.

About the author

Anthony Coundouris is the founder of Futurebooks Pte Ltd. Futurebooks offer affordable incorporation, bookkeeping, business planning and business brokering in Singapore and South East Asia.

Anthony has helped new companies incorporate, conduct industry analysis and develop brand positioning. He was founder of Firestarter, a digital marketing agency — a company acquired by Novus Media in 2010.

Photo: Ian Muttoo

But in Asia, PayPal’s not the only kid in the online payment neighborhood. In fact, over the years, numerous alternatives have sprung up in the region, sometimes even beating the payment giant in market share in their respective countries.

Furthermore, in emerging markets, ubiquitous Internet services are not always readily available, which means over-the-counter payment remains popular in those places.

So, if you’re an entrepreneur keen on regional or global expansion, understanding the market and the key players is an important first step. To help you, we’ve compiled this constantly-updated list to keep you abreast of the latest developments in Asia.

1) PayDollar

Launched in January 2012 by AsiaPay, a Internet and mobile payment services provider, PayDollar is a comprehensive debit payment option for the Asia-Pacific region. Merchants can use it to collect real-time payments from customers via bank accounts, debit cards, e-wallets, and prepaid products.

It can process payments from the following partners: China UnionPay, AliPay, 99Bill, PPS, MyClear, BancNet, Globe GCash, Smart Money, POLi, Bangkok Bank, Bank of Ayudhya, TMB Bank, United Overseas Bank, Siam Commercial Bank, and Krung Thai Bank accountholders.

The appeal of this service is that it can accept payments from a wide variety of online payment options, be it e-commerce, m-commerce, or direct bank transactions.

The service is available in Hong Kong, China, Australia, New Zealand, Malaysia, Thailand, Singapore, and Philippines.

2) Paysbuy

Paysbuy is a popular online payment option in Thailand. Founded in 2004, it allows members to send and receive money, as well as make payments via electronic devices. It also offers a variety of payment channels including credit cards, bank transfers, counter services, and e-wallets.

The company recently launched a mobile app for iPhone and Android, and has obtained an Electronic Money License from Thailand’s Ministry of Finance, and an Electronic Payment Service Provider License from the Ministry of ICT. They also have the Trustmark symbol from the Ministry of Commerce.

3) Alipay, Tenpay, Chinapay, 99bill

I grouped all of them together because they have one thing in common: They’re the four major online payment gateways in China in terms of marketshare.

According to an interactive graphic from Thomson-Reuters, Alipay is tops with 45.5 percent market share. It claims to have some 550 million users. Second is Tenpay, at 21.2 percent, followed by Chinapay and finally 99bill, which, despite coming in a distant fourth, has 107 million registered users (and the most original name).

PayPal is hardly a blip on the radar, although Chinese users do use it to purchase foreign goods.

Alipay allows companies outside of China to accept payments from within the country through its cross-border website and mobile payment services. However, foreign companies must pay a US$1,000 setup fee, and are charged a higher transaction fee. They also have an escrow payment service that allows shoppers to verify the quality of the goods they received before releasing the funds to the merchant.

Alipay can also be seen as PayPal greatest competitor. In fact, it claims to be bigger than PayPal in terms of transaction volume and registered users. Alipay has global ambitions as well: It plans to launch Alipay Express, it’s international online payment platform, very soon.

Tenpay and 99bill, on the other hand, can only be used by businesses registered in China. Also, 99bill lacks an escrow service, and also charges foreign companies more. Tenpay would be a great option if your business is reaching out to customers that use Tencent’s QQ services. QQ is the most popular instant messaging service in China, at 300 million users.

Considering the obvious bias towards China companies that the services have, foreign entrepreneurs who are serious about doing e-commerce in China should really consider registering in the country. For a more detailed guide on which payment services best suit your business, check out this handy article.

4) Swiff

Swiff, a Singapore-based company, does not seek to duplicate what PayPal does. Unlike PayPal, which is primarily an online payment gateway, Swiff is a mobile point-of-sales solution that enables merchants to accept payments simply by attaching a small credit card swiper to and installing an app on their smartphones.

What Swiff is competing with PayPal in, however, is the fight to win the future of cashless transactions in brick-and-mortar stores. It’s a battle that the likes of Google Wallet and US-based Square (started by Twitter creater Jack Dorsey) are involved in too.

Besides being a standalone product, Swiff also enables app developers to offer its solutions from their apps so that they can transact with users. The company has also worked with Raptor, a restaurant POS provider, to integrate their payment service into restaurant operations.

SGE previewed Swiff in October 2011, and since then, they are one step closer to launch. Their iOS and Android app is available for download on the App Store and Android Market. Merchants who want to use the app will need to register on the Swiff website.

The service is being made available in Singapore and Malaysia, although they plan to expand to Europe, the USA, Canada and South America.

5) MOLPoints

Think PayPal for games, and you have MOLPoints. But it’s more than that: MOLPoints is also an online currency and currency exchange system. A Malaysian product, MOLPoints is a system that enables customers to purchase online games, products, and services. It is available in Malaysia, Singapore, Philippines, India, Indonesia, and Thailand.

MOLPoints is essentially a niche product that services avid casual gamers who wouldn’t mind splurging on in-game items. Users pay real currency in exchange for MOLPoints, which can be used in over 200 games. With the MOLPoints Facebook app, gamers can even purchase Facebook Credits for use within the social network.

Last year, MOL Global, the company behind the system, purchased Zest Interactive, a leading games distributor and payment gateway company in Thailand. It owns a network of over 40,000 physical channels including retail outlets and cybercafes.

The acquisition should result in stronger usage of MOLPoints among Thai casual gamers.

Know of any alternatives that should be featured? Let us know in the comments section!

Facebook is the ultimate acqhire company.

Acqhire is the new buzzword referring to an exit strategy when big tech companies purchase small companies, primarily as a talent recruitment strategy, sometimes with a significant signing bonus.

So far, to the best of my knowledge, it only happens in the US.

Facebook is probably the most well-known company involved in such takeover types. It started with several companies: Friendfeed, Beluga and most recently, Gowalla. Several investors (or tech pundits) for example, Mike Arrington & Jason Calacanis have provided their perspectives on the acqhire issue specifically on the Gowalla case. Hence I thought it might be interesting topic to examine in Asia.

In my own humble opinion, I don’t think that it will ever happen for tech companies in Asia and here are several reasons why:

Your investors do not know how to sell.

Most venture capitalists in Asia are not sophisticated enough to sell their portfolio of companies to potential acquirers. So, do you think that they are smart enough to structure a acqhire deal with the companies? Another argument is that in the web-tech space, the big four companies (Google, Facebook, Apple & Amazon) together with Microsoft are all located in the US, and hence it’s difficult for Asian investors to get them to acquire.

While we see more Chinese & Japanese companies extending their reach to Southeast Asia, the investors are rarely involved in structuring these acquisitions. Usually in Asia, the entrepreneurs do the work most of the time. Time and time again, it’s easier to remind most readers that most venture capitalists in Asia are a bunch of bankers who have no operations experience and that’s why they cannot structure deals in the way how the US guys does it.

Less frequency of acquisitions for tech companies in Asia due to technology arbitrage and pricing.

First of all, most owners of Asian companies or conglomerates are thrifty and less expansive in their acquisitions. Our environment is less sophisticated as compared to Silicon Valley. Most conglomerates purchase for functionality and not the complete package that comes with the acquisition, which include talent and other assets of the company which are not exactly functional, like a sales and marketing division.

Facebook’s rationale for acquisitions like Gowalla and Friendfeed, on the other hand, is to hire talent for Facebook.

They will put a price on the founders and then pay the rest with the stocks of the parent company. That’s also the reason why Twitter rejected the bid from Facebook four years ago, because the amount for payout was too low, based on rumors at that point of time.

As far as obtaining expertise goes, Asian companies prefer to build the same technology by outsourcing to a Chinese or Indian firm, as it’s cheaper. Hence the tech arbitrage is the costs in cloning the same company overseas as opposed to locally.

Asian companies only buy one talent and not an entire team of players.

To an Asian owner, it’s too expensive to buy a team. Just buy the top guy and that’s enough. In Silicon Valley, if we examine the acqhire cases, they usually involve the acquisition of teams of engineers. One case stood out in Asia was the acquisition of Ngmoco by DeNA, and the sole reason was that the founder was a former employee of Electronic Arts.

In conclusion, it is not difficult to fathom why acqhires are ridiculously difficult to execute for Asian companies in simple words: sophistication, arbitrage, price.

Image: Andrew Feinberg

Which means it’s time to bring out our running shoes to undo the damage.

But exercise is not something that comes easily to busy urbanites like us, who work twelve hours a day and are not kinesthetically-inclined.

That’s a problem entrepreneurs in Southeast Asia are trying to solve. Exercise can be a chore, but it can also be fun, with the right approach. Here are a few startups that are trying to bring us one step closer towards fitness nirvana:

Fitness Buffet

No, Fitness Buffet has nothing to do with food. Rather, it’s a website that offers customers a smorgasbord of sporting activities at one fixed price. So, once you pay S$128 (US$99), you will receive a set of coupons that allows you to try 28 activities within two months, at no extra cost.

There’s a wide variety available in Singapore, which ranges from a standard one-week gym pass and an introductory golf class to more eclectic stuff like a Kettleball class and boot camp, which are essentially Army-esque training sessions (without the nasty drill sergeants).

There’s something for the kids too — a Kung Fu Kids Program and a Kids Fit and Play Group Session will get them into the exercise groove at an early age.

While most people won’t finish all the activities within 60 days, they can sign up for another package to sample other activities. Since the list of offerings is fluid, they can expect something different every time they join the program.

The Singapore-based startup, founded last year by New Zealander Callum Laing, is now serving customers in Bangkok, Chicago, and Singapore.

Callum got the inspiration for Fitness Buffet while sweating out on a treadmill after Christmas in 2010. He noticed how his daughter, who was accompanying him, was having fun.

“Getting fit has become a chore for many people. They find exercise mundane and are turned off by it. Wouldn’t it be great if we could make it fun again?” he said.

Fitness Buffet is slated to open in 25 more cities in the United States this year, as well as in several cities in Asia and Europe.

Playlor!

The key to enjoying a workout does not just lie in what you do but who you do it with. That is the premise for Playlor!, which bills itself as “a sports social platform, organising social, recreational and competitive sports leagues and tournaments and other social activities”.

Founded by Singaporean Felix Sim in September 2011, the name Playlor! is derived from  the Singlish phrase “Play lor!”, where ‘lor’ is a word often used to give extra emphasis.

So far, they have organized eight tournaments and hosted close to 1,000 players and spectators at its HQ in Marina Country Club. The startup also owns its own 24/7 indoor multi-sports facility spanning over 15,000 square feet. It contains two futsal courts and one multi-purpose court which is used  for street basketball and floorball games.

Felix, which spent four years in Dubai running his own investment advisory firm, found that playing soccer, futsal and golf are good ways of finding potential business partners and solidifying existing relationships.

“I felt that meeting new people over a game of sport is so much easier than over a drink or a networking event, because everyone is relaxed and tend to be more open to conversation,” he said.

Playlor! generates revenue from fixed fees from players which participate in their events. They are looking out for partners to take the business to the rest of Southeast Asia. In the works also is an app to encourage people to play more sports.

SixReps.com

Some of you may remember SixReps.com, one of the finalists representing Indonesia at the Echelon 2011 Launchpad. Founded by Denny Santoso, SixReps is a social network that allows users to track their fitness goals and workout routines, and connect with other users who have similar pursuits.

If so inclined, users can post before/after pictures of themselves flexing their muscles, which acts as a way of tracking progress. They can document body data like weight, body fat percentage, the size of the thighs, and so on. The website also has a database of detailed, visual information about workouts that fitness enthusiasts can add to their existing repertoire.

Essentially, SixReps becomes a platform for users to motivate one another, show off their finely toned muscles, and make tracking progress much easier and more interesting.

For now, its members are mainly Indonesians, although they did have a soft launch in the US late last year at Olympia Weekend 2011, a bodybuilding event.

Although many of its core features are not yet ready, the team has been working on infrastructural improvements in anticipation of a bigger push in the US.

Home page image: j9sk9s

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