Echelon Launchpad: Singapore and beyond
We recently took part in the Echelon Launchpad in Singapore, as covered in TechOrange and Inside. Here’s our story.
As a startup, we are always looking to save money. When we read that Launchpad companies receive free tickets to the Echelon conference, we decided to apply to the Launchpad as a way to save money… :)
When we were given a slot to pitch at the Echelon Satellite event, we were in California and almost gave up since we couldn’t be there in person. Luckily, the Echelon organizers were flexible enough to let us give our presentation remotely.
We recorded a 5 minute video, and then stayed up until 4am Pacific Time in order to appear at the Hong Kong Echelon Satellite event via Skype video and answer questions from the panel of judges. (Coincidentally, our colleague Jaime happened to be in Hong Kong that day and was able to attend the event in person as part of audience.)
As we had appeared via video, it was a bit of a surprise when we found out we had been selected as one of the top 11 for the Echelon Launchpad! Much more important than a free conference ticket, Echelon had given us a great chance to let people know about our product and to get attention for our company.
In preparation for Echelon, our awesome team in Taipei (especially Mariusz, YY and Godfat) worked tirelessly to polish our website, send out emails to boost traffic, and release iPhone and Android versions of our Tribute Balloon app in time for the conference.
The experience gave us a chance to rethink our pitch, exercise our teamwork and practice our speaking skills — this was definitely the largest audience that either of us had ever addressed. (Echelon had 1000 attendees in total, and there were many hundreds in the audience.)
We were the first team to present at the Launchpad. After 5 minutes of delivering our pitch (without a hitch) and 10 minutes of probing from the judges (from whom we received a lot of constructive questions and feedback), we could sit back and relax for the rest of the afternoon.
The conference itself was eye-opening. In addition to attending some insightful talks from speakers such as Richard White from User Voice, we got a chance to meet attendees from all over Asia, such as Jellybus (from Korea), Makible (from Hong Kong), Qomune (from Japan). Attendees from Indonesia, Malaysia and Vietnam gave us a greater appreciation for the diversity and startup activity in Southeast Asia. A contingent of scrappy startups from Taiwan (encouraged by Mark Hsu of TMI Labs) also showed up, in one case with 3 companies sharing a tiny exhibit table.
As for Singapore itself — we met experienced entrepreneurs such as Derek Sivers and Scott Rafer who had found their way to Singapore to open branch offices or to become mentors. We saw Singapore startups such as Pigeonhole.sg, Gamemaki and Playmoolah that showed high marketing polish and targeted an international English-speaking audience.
We definitely got a sense that Singapore was making a concerted effort to become a hub for technology for Asia through various government incentives for multinationals and funding for startups. How this will work out still remains to be seen (in terms of developing true entrepreneurial spirit and sufficient talent pool), but based on what we saw at Echelon, it’s pretty impressive so far!
——
John and Mei
