Before Perx co-founders Andrew Roth and Jon Sugihara started work on their loyalty card mobile app, which is now the market leader in Singapore, they ran successful daily deals site PLAYhawaii.com. It was on track to generate US$2M in revenue a year.
Based in Hawaii, they expanded their business to Asia, founding Maiplay last year with Facebook co-founder Eduardo Saverin as an investor and advisor. They launched in Jakarta and Singapore, entering a heated field dominated by Groupon.
However, they dumped their daily deals business within months. They sold PLAYhawaii.com and launched their loyalty card mobile app in October 2011. They’re now based in Singapore.
What sparked the change was their belief that daily deals is a lousy way to acquire loyal customers for merchants. The hunch paid off: At the time of the interview, Perx had close to 40,000 registered users, and about 400 merchants in Singapore, with 10 to 20 new locations each week.
Their partner merchants are not lightweights either. Big brands like Popeyes, Famous Amos, and Dunkin Donuts have come on board. With pole position in the country secured (around!, Pointpal, and Squiryl are competitors), they are now working with a partner to scale their business to other parts of Asia.
“When we call merchants, we really had to tell them not to hang up as we’re not a daily deals company.”
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Filed under Featured, Innovation & Technology, Interviews, Mobile, Retail, TechnologyTags: andrew roth, daily deal, daily deals, E27, Echelon, echelon 2012, group buying, jon sugihara, perx, Singapore, singapore satellite
With a population of over 250 million, the fourth largest in the world, Indonesia presents itself as a seductive market to businesses, especially web and mobile companies. But is it really the case? Being a realist at heart, William Henley, also known as “Dr. Doom” in the Indonesia technology sector, will be doing a short presentation at e27′s Founders Drinks on 29th March on navigating the Indonesian maze. Read more
Our friend E27 is working together with Roofcamp, WebGeekPH and Amazon Web Services to bring Founders Drinks to Philippines. Serkan Toto will be talking about his views on the tech scene in Asia. Audiences can hear the insights that he has gathered throughout his career as an independent web and mobile industry consultant.
Event Details
When: Wednesday, 21st March 2012
Time: 6pm-9pm
Where: Pasto at El Pueblo, Adb Avenue Corner J. Vargas Streets Ortigas Center, Pasig, Philippines
Register here.
Starting their Founder Drinks for 2012, E27 will bring Christoph Zrenner of Wildfire (see SGE’s articles on the company). Cristoph will talk about how he raised the first round of investment for Wildfire, how startups can better use word-of-mouth marketing and also understand social media in order to effectively grow their user base.
Event Details
When: Thursday, 23rd February 2012
Time: 630pm-9pm
Where: Suffle Bistro Bar, Blk 3D River Valley Road #02-03, Clarke Quay, Singapore 179023 (Map)
Register here.
Updated: 22nd March 2012
Echelon, an annual Asia tech startup launchpad, will be back for its third iteration. It is also accepting applications for Startup Marketplace, an exhibition platform for tech entrepreneurs to showcase their startups to potential investors, corporate partners, the media, and members of the startup community.
Deadline for this year’s applications is 31st March 2012. Prior to the main event in Singapore, shortlisted candidates, selected by a panel of judges, will be invited to participate in satellite events in various countries, where they will pitch their products to audiences. Read more
For an indication of how developed a geek community, just ask if there is a HackerSpace around. That’s an observation made by Zane Kripe, a PhD student at Leiden University in the Netherlands, in an article for the International Institute for Asian Studies newsletter.
“HackerSpace requires substantial dedication and effort, and thus can be considered to indicate the existence of a more developed and substantial geek community,” she wrote, adding that Hackerspaces are gaining momentum in Southeast Asia. These spaces are distinct in that they are independent from the government and large corporations.
Within a year, four new establishments arose in Indonesia, and they are located in the cities of Bandung, Surabaya, Yogyakarta, and Medan. Jakarta is on track to have one too. Read more
This year marks the tenth anniversary of the Ernst & Young Singapore Entrepreneur of the Year Award, the results of which were announced this week.
It also marks ten years since the Singapore government established an Economic Review Committee to fundamentally review the country’s development strategy, and formulate a blueprint for economic restructuring.
(Photo: The Parliament House. By Kojach)
Read more
Filed under Featured, Funding, Special Commentary, Venture Capital & Private EquityTags: E27, economic review committee, erc, Ernst & Young Singapore Entrepreneur of the Year Award, INSEAD, NRF TIS, Singapore Government, Startup@Singapore
e27 will be hosting a special edition of Founders Drinks with Venture Capitalist Tim Draper.
Timothy C. Draper is the Founder and a Managing Director of Draper Fisher Jurvetson. His original suggestion to use “viral marketing” in web-based e-mail to geometrically spread an Internet product to its market was instrumental to the successes of Hotmail and YahooMail, and has been adopted as a standard marketing technique by hundreds of businesses. Read more
This month, Founders Drink will be back again in town. Focusing on social media with a specific look at user acquisition via social media, e27 is partnering with Penn Olson and Amazon Web Services. There will be some changes in the format of Founder Drinks. Instead of of the usual startup pitches, the organizer will increase engagement by having these startups do a five minute presentation on their product and also an issue that they are facing related to the focus of the night. The question and answer session will then engage the panel and also members of the audience to bounce ideas around. After the two case studies, the panel will then round up the evening by taking questions from the audience or sharing some key thoughts of their own.
Program Details
7pm–710pm Welcome/Opening speech by e27 & Penn Olson
710pm–725pm Opening speech by Amazon Web Services
725pm–740pm Case Study 1 (Qlubbr)
740pm–755pm Case Study 2 (Gastro Couture)
755pm–815pm Panel Roundup
815pm–900pm Networking
Event Details
When: Wed, Aug 31
Time: 7pm-9pm
Where: Amazon Web Services, Capital Square, 23 Church Street, #10-01, 049481 Singapore (Map)
Register here.
Echelon 2011 aims to help Southeast Asia’s startups get discovered. The main event will be held in June in Singapore, but there will be two Satellite launchpads in Singapore and KL (Malaysia) will help filter the startups.
Echelon 2011 will be a two-day, double-track event with an expected attendance of more than 1,000 delegates; a demo pit of more than 40 startups and companies; and workshops and fringe events. Read more
Filed under EventsTags: 31Storey, Alphapod, Asia, CellKast, E27, Echelon, Feed George, FetchFans, FLOChip, Hong Kong startups, identifii, launch, LocoBuzz, Love Byte, Malaysia startups, MobileApps, Motif Channel, Philippines startups, PlayMoolah, Posttude, singapore startups, Soft Solvers, Spatial Ideas, Startups, Stylelogue, Taxizu, Tikam, WorkCrowd
