Comments on: Congratulations – Winners Of Start-Up@Singapore 2009

By: Congrats

Congrats — Sat, 03 Oct 2009 05:53:11 +0000

just saw kai square's name on the recent papers about some other awards they won, and stumbled here after searching about them~ perhaps they will be the one who can really make singapore proud and show us what it means to be true entreprenuers.

Chris, your point 5 may be proven wrong, but perhaps not by Zimplistic this time (which i simply dunno what it does, or what value it has, what the heaven is chapathi?! is it a “must have” thing or a want? how come i dunno what it is?)

By: Congrats

Congrats — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 14:53:11 +0000

By: Sean Seah

Sean Seah — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 15:35:59 +0000

Oh, Kris from NEC? Hey, nice seeing you here :)

abc, i think kai square has good technologies, but need to polish business? IMHO, I felt their business can scale better than zimplistic and higher barrier of entry as well. (Disclaimer: I know them personally )

By: Stanley Tay

Stanley Tay — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 16:32:59 +0000

S@S is truly a worthwhile event in Singapore which SPARKS ideas, innovations and *of course* great presentations from the start-ups. My take – instead of debating on the likelihood of business success, perhaps its not too late to compare our start-ups and their “products” with competitions of similar nature in Europe and *of course* USA ??? All start-ups would think that our ideas and “products” are world-class and “sure make it!”, but lets sit back and evaluate our stuff against stuff in other parts of the world. Should we not benchmark ourselves against the best if we want to be the FIRST IN THE WORLD ? DGI – good to know that some “start-ups” started cooking in government agencies, while others started from basically nothing.

By: abc

abc — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 14:18:24 +0000

any one with any comments on the runner-up kai square?

By: Kris

Kris — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 06:47:15 +0000

Hi Sean: I am a marketing advisor and helped with some of the strategy and positioning work on the product. I agree that Christofer did not propose he has an idea, my point was in the spirit of “light one candle rather than curse the darkness”. I would love to see more and better ideas, presentations and, agreeing with Arun, teams coming out of S@S.

BTW, Sean, think you and I may have met – over beers, at United Square – or am I misremembering.

By: Arun

Arun — Sun, 07 Jun 2009 09:04:27 +0000

I think that more than the idea itself, it’s the people behind the idea that count. Good ideas are dime a dozen. Good people, not so much.

By: Sean Seah

Sean Seah — Sun, 07 Jun 2009 08:00:29 +0000

Dear Kris,

Congratulation and you must be a really good advisor. (btw, on what aspect you advise?)

Regards to your last part about asking Christofer what idea he has, I think that is really funny. Personally, I do not think you need a business idea in order to criticize other people’s one. Soccer fans do not play soccer but criticize alot right?

Anw, he did not say he has a superb idea which he think is better than everyone, right?

So when are we seeing the chapati-maker in the market? I will get one to support local startup, but i will buy if its less than 80 sgd and is as simple as making toast bread :)

By: Kris

Kris — Sat, 06 Jun 2009 06:02:18 +0000

Hi Christofer:

I was Pranoti’s advisor going into S@S although a number of people helped her. I thought she did a spectacular job conceptualizing, prototyping and selling her ideas.

While I think I should step to Pranoti’s defense, I will not respond with the same vitriolic (look it up) that you used. But let me just say that your criticisms are unfounded and *of course* she won’t show some of the real, subtle innovations in her product in a public contest. Industrial grade chapati makers are only an alternative if your family wants to spend US$50K and eats 1,000 chapati an hour! Industrial chapati quality is also not so good I hear.

Zimplistic was a surprise winner and they may be the first S@S winner to break the $10M annual revenue “ceiling” you observed.

But rather than argue over such an inane issue – let me know what is YOUR big idea for a product. If it has merit, perhaps we can help YOU to win the next S@S.

Warm regards,

Kris

By: Sean Seah

Sean Seah — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 01:26:37 +0000

Hi Christofer,

Thanks for your reply.
I still do not understand why you feel Phokki does not deserve to win. Can you share with us who are the players in the market that Phokki is in from your opinion?

Perhaps you are right that some of the ideas are better, but most importantly, it is how you present and execute it in the competition.

Those that did not win, did they carry on to bring their ideas to reality? If not, why not? Just trying their luck or do not believe in their idea that much?

And of cos i will do whatever I think its right la, but hearing more feedbacks can help us improve better.

Thanks :)