How to Start a Small Business Startup?
Five Singaporean startups share the inspiration behind their business and gives advice for young entrepreneurs hoping to follow in their footsteps.
By Melody Bay -
Overpriced air-conditioner servicing. A lack of space to do urban farming. A need for integrating different smart home services into a single platform.
These may seem like just problems for the average homeowner, but for these five startup founders, they were an opportunity to make things better. They each developed a solution to the respective problems they faced and ran with it, turning that solution into a business idea that would impact thousands.
The journey of a startup isn’t easy, especially if you face pushback for a relatively new idea. But for these five, sheer determination and adaptability in a rapidly changing world are helping them through. They share their insights on their business and what makes it work.
Jon Ng, Managing Director of PRISM+
One of the most recognisable brands in the gaming industry, PRISM+ has made a name for itself with its affordably-priced TVs and monitors within just a few short years. "As a brand, we want to not only bring great value to our products, but also enhance the end-to-end experience of our customers, from initial contact, to purchase, delivery as well as after-sales services," says Jon Ng, the managing director.
Tell us about the inspiration behind your business.
The birth of PRISM+ in 2017 was due to one simple observation – the mark-up in price due to the presence of middlemen in getting the product to the end-user.
These products were often sold through channels that lacked intuitive and personalised customer service support, and customers lacked a direct line of communication with the brand.
We felt that we could change this landscape by creating a consumer electronics brand focused on bringing the ultimate experience to our customers, introducing an omnichannel presence for our customer service with tools such as live chats, and calls.
How has your business adapted during the pandemic?
Our business model has always adopted digital methods of reaching out to our consumers, such as partnerships with e-commerce platforms such as Lazada, and the pandemic has simply shifted our efforts to emphasise this approach.
Given our customer-centric approach, we saw a need to adapt our service processes to better fit the concerns faced by our customers during the pandemic. For example, we made all service repairs onsite free for our customers, so that they would not have to leave the safety of their homes for any repairs/service support required.
We also saw the need for quicker resolution times for our customers since they were more dependent on our products at home during the pandemic. The increase in demand coupled with the dependence on our products resulted in the chat/call/email call volumes increasing at an alarming rate. As such, we scaled our customer service team by 5 times during a short span of 2 months during COVID to deliver quicker resolution times.
What’s your proudest achievement?
Our proudest achievement was when we became the first, and only Singaporean brand thus far to gain approval from Google to launch our own Android Television line.
We still remember how far away and out of reach this goal felt in the beginning. This could not have been done without the amazing support of our dedicated team at PRISM+ and the loyal customers that we have attained over the years.
What are your upcoming plans?
We recently launched our new line of Android TVs, the Q Series PRO, which features premium enhancements like Dolby Vision and Atmos, a Hands-Free Google Assistant feature (Far-field Voice Control) and upgraded Quantum Colour. For the first time ever, we have also added a massive 86-inch television to our repertoire.
We will be focusing on bringing more localised content to our users by achieving key strategic partnerships with content providers popular in our community, such as Viu, MeWATCH and IQiyi.
The big thing we are working on at the moment is our regional expansion as we look to make inroads within the APAC region, so stay tuned and watch this space!
For more information, visit www.prismplus.sg.
Franklin Tang, Founder and CEO, Habitap
Integrated smart living is made easier with Habitap’s all-in-one mobile platform for both residential and commercial use. They offer integration of services such as smart home control, gated access, and booking of property facilities for users living in certain residential projects, plus functions like electronic visitor management for commercial buildings. When CEO and founder Franklin Tang started Habitap in 2017, he faced plenty of challenges in a world where traditional systems were still preferred. Today, it’s a different story.
Tell us about the inspiration behind your business.
In 2016, I read about Singapore’s Smart Nation initiative, and that started my pursuit for building an integrated mobile app to drive smart living adoption. I was working on a project at the time with a global brand to co-build a prototype smart home here in Singapore, when I realised the challenges.
A fair amount of technical knowledge is needed to set up a smart home. I found the process and user experience far from ideal – hence, I decided to build an intuitive platform, Habitap, to make smart living relevant to our lifestyle and a seamless experience for our users.
What’s the biggest challenge you’ve faced along the way in running your business, and how did you overcome it?
When I started Habitap, one of the biggest challenges was convincing clients and industry to think about software, especially in the build environment that was quite literally all brick and mortar. Many times, I was regarded as the “troublemaker” in the room and perhaps in the industry because I was throwing around all these crazy ideas about how individuals could control buildings and how we could all go wireless when asked about cabling provisions!
However, we stuck to our commitment to continue making innovative and easy to use technology. Moving forward, Habitap would still be focusing on enhancing and augmenting that seamless user experience.
What’s one piece of advice would you give to young entrepreneurs in Singapore?
Like myself, I think entrepreneurs are by nature passionate and optimistic. But surviving on passion and optimism alone is not sustainable. We need to confirm as quickly as we can if our business model is sustainable in the real world.
For more information, visit www.myhabitap.com.
Dylan Soh, Co-founder, One Kind Block
Interested in urban farming at home, but not sure where to start? This father-and-son startup aims to resolve the issue of growing produce in small spaces with their modular system. Akin to fitting together pieces of LEGO, their system can be as compact or extensive as you need. This has proved popular with their Kickstarter round, which raised over $40,000.
Tell us about the inspiration behind your business.
The vision was always to make cities a little greener from the ground-up, as opposed to the common top-down vertical industrial farms. Not all apartments aren’t designed for urban farming, so we had to create a hydroponic system that could adapt to any apartment layout anywhere, on the windows, balconies, corridors and walls. Any space you can hang a 1x1m painting can be converted to grow up to 2kg of vegetables a month.
What’s the biggest challenge you’ve faced along the way in running your business, and how did you overcome it?
The pandemic has been a double-edged sword. On one end, it’s slowed down the process of prototyping and manufacturing to an extent. On the other, it’s boosted interest in urban farming and brought to light how badly we as a city need to be sustainable.
What’s one piece of advice would you give to young entrepreneurs in Singapore?
Honestly, the confidence in putting out your ideas and opinions out there for others to judge is difficult to learn, but it gets easier with time. Failure is your friend and each time you encounter him remember to take something away, and you’ll find you can learn a lot from him.
What are your upcoming plans?
We’re constantly inventing and prototyping new blocks to fit into the current system, LEGO-style. Soon, you’ll be able to add on things like solar-powered pump modules and grow light modules to grow tougher plants like tomatoes and chili padi plants.
For more information, visit www.facebook.com/onekindblock.
Hakeem SA, Co-founder, ServiceBack
Getting cashback rewards is common when shopping online – but what about applying this idea to services like air-conditioner servicing and house painting? This idea was the brainchild of Hakeem SA and his fellow co-founders of ServiceBack, a first-of-its-kind platform where you get cashback for home and renovation services. With over 12,000 customers and plenty of five-star reviews, the platform has continued to enjoy immense popularity among homeowners.
Tell us about the inspiration behind your business.
I started an air-conditioning servicing business in January 2020 after encountering an unpleasant air-conditioning servicing experience. I paid for a bunch of things I didn’t really understand, and later found out that the price I was quoted was five times more expensive than usual. I was thinking about a better way that the industry could function, and how we could create an impact. With ServiceBack, we are solving the problem of highly inequitable acquisition costs borne by the customer. The deeper that we looked at it, the more problematic and prevalent it was.
What’s the biggest challenge you’ve faced along the way in running your business, and how did you overcome it?
It is still a very much “hands-on” industry and relies on people for most parts in terms of the service rendered. As there are multiple human touchpoints, there exists a risk of failure in between. Often, the quality of service (Work done, communication, after-sales etc) is not a factor that can be controlled 100%. The challenge is ensuring that the quality of service is maintained at all times and that every job is completed satisfactorily.
Don’t be afraid, and dare to take the risk! Sometimes, you got to rely on your gut feel and just give it a shot. Even if it doesn’t work out, so be it.
What are your upcoming plans?
We’ve got big dreams. In line with the cashback model, we are going to introduce a group buy concept, a renovation credit line with partner financing facilities, instalment payments for large ticket purchases and partnering with other payment providers for cross-platform rewards and merchant cashback.
For more information, visit www.serviceback.com.
Brien Chua, Co-founder and CEO, HOUZE
It was just a small e-commerce store in 2017, but today the HOUZE Storage Inspirations brand is well known amongst Singaporean homeowners. For Brien Chua, the co-founder and CEO, this is one of his proudest achievements. The HOUZE brand offers homeowners affordable, durable storage solutions that keep the home clutter-free, an especially important aspect of post-COVID life where most of us are still working from home.
Tell us about the inspiration behind your business.
During my years working in China, I got acquainted with the CEO of China’s biggest homeware, plastics and storage manufacturer. We were on friendly terms - and I first fell in love with the home living industry when I visited one of his gigantic warehouses, which was filled top to toe with all sorts of home living paraphernalia. It was fantastic.
How has your business adapted during the pandemic?
We are a predominantly e-commerce based brand, so the digital channels and operations model that were needed to expand in the post-Covid economy were already well in place prior to the pandemic. We were also very happy to experience a massive increase in the total volume of orders for our homeware products.
This gave rise to “good” problems - namely, how to fulfil the new influx of orders that were pouring in. That obstacle was also compounded by the 50% limit on manpower due to the Circuit Breaker. With some quick thinking and elbow grease, we were able to rapidly navigate through new Covid-19 regulations and run through work approvals to get our businesses running-as-usual. In addition, we redeployed manpower from retail stores to work in the warehouses’ picking and packing roles as demand increased for our homeware products.
What’s one piece of advice would you give to young entrepreneurs in Singapore?
One, be willing to step out of your own shoes and be objective about what your goals are. People only see the glamorous side as you get recognized. But, the truth is, it is not always a pretty sight. You need to be hungry and unafraid of getting dirty, whether that’s stuffing pallets, transporting goods, or driving lorries.
For more information, visit www.houze.com.sg.
“There’s no way to stay in your ivory tower as an entrepreneur. You have to get down and dirty, and sometimes go without sleep to ensure that even the smallest task is done right.”