1415T1g1 Silicon Valley/Participant Information/Reflection/8 Dec
We then visited Innov8. Interesting place. When we went there, it was a pretty empty office. Then we saw 2 guys popped out from the staircase and we soon realised that they are the only 2 people working here. It’s a venture capital arm of Singtel after all. Generally VCs are lean but control a large amount of capital. From what they say, Innov8 is doing pretty well. What was interesting to me was that Innov8 measures of success need to be tied to Singtel, albeit vaguely at times. So if one day I have a company that might be of some help to Singtel, Innov8 is probably the best way to go.
Last stop of the day was Twillo. I’ve came across their API a couple of times while browsing the web and I can’t believe I’m now at their office. Peter, a well-built guy in an orange shirt, greeted us. From Singapore many years ago, he seemed to have lost the Singaporean accent only having worked at Twillo for a year and a half. The presentation seems like a sales pitch and it didn’t really help me understand the company more than I already do. I mean I could probably get what he said from the Twillo website. That said, the walk around the premises does offer a glimpse of the benefits of working in a SF startup. Free food, pingpong, work-life balance are just some of the perks of working in Twillo. Working with amazing people is probably another unspoken perk. Peter said that he still “worked” during Chinese New Year partly because he cared about his project and the company. That’s true isn't it? If everyone is as passionate about the project as you, wouldn’t you enjoy working too?PayPal:
I was thoroughly impressed at how PayPal presented their products, and at the same time I realised how competitive companies in the valley are. I also saw how the things that were taught in IDP were applicable to the real world, since all of the presentations about the new initiatives and the final presentation that Michael and Eric gave were all heavily based on the personas of their users and the scenarios in which the users can use their products. From the products introduced (e.g. check in feature, POS payment gateway, check-in via beacon etc.) I realised that PayPal now has many competitors who have just entered the market, and that they needed to adapt to such changes to stay competitive. It would be interesting to see how the competition between PayPal, Apple Pay and other payment gateways play out in the future.
innov8:
This visit will likely be the company that will provide more unique learning experiences for us since they are the only venture capitalist that we will be visiting. We learnt about how VCs select companies to invest in. They take into account both the potential of the team and the idea before deciding to get involved with them. What interested me was how Jeff mentioned that the relationships VCs form with the companies are akin to marriage - they will be together for the next few years, and it is not an easy relationship to get out of. We also talked about some of the failed investments that innov8 made and that one of the biggest downfalls for startups is to fall in love so much with an idea that they are not willing to adapt.
Twilio:
PayPal:
The start of the TSM is simply amazing when we had a great start to such a big company like Paypal. Paypal is a sub-company of Ebay inc, which owns Ebay as well. We were led by Shaun, an IOS developer for Paypal. He generously brought us into the company and had us to participate in the visitor centre walkthrough. I was intrigued by how Paypal is inventing itself as a top payment gateway and improving itself as a whole. I like how Paypal is moving forward with removing the need to alternate to another page and redirecting. This really makes sense! This would reduce the time wasted as well as the all the confusion in making payment with Paypal.
Innov8
Venture Capitalist is a very interesting concept of pulling money and investing into lucrative businesses. In the Innov8 case, the idea of Venture Capitalising is no different with the exception that it is actually funded by our very own big Telco Singtel. It is amazing yet not very surprising that Singtel would want to invest in the valley. This is because Singtel is at the very basic a service company and technology is quintessential to them. I believe that the valley itself is like a very delicious cake, and Singtel is also yearning for a slice of it. Jeff, the managing director of Innov8 did mentioned though that even at such a technopreneuring spirit at the valley, they do look out for risk. Innova itself has no desire to fail, but I do think it is because it is backed by a Singapore company, where it is risk adverse and take no chance to fail in anything. Having to hear this, I do feel sad as even being physically at the valley itself, we are still unable to assimilate ourselves nicely into the risk is just a journey concept. Overall, I do see the importance of a venture capital company because it is the engine of all startups. It has the monetary power to help build innovation and creativity. I believe that there are many venture capital companies out there that we are not familiar with, and it is a striving industry that we should never underestimate.
Twilio
What exactly is Twilio? So it is an api service company that deals with the concept of using api for communication like text messaging as well as calling. It is very imperative to be portable in today's time. Like what Peter has mentioned, we are evolving, and transiting from one place to another very quickly. With Twilio's technology, we are able to move forward with shifting of call centre that easily, simply because we call from the laptop. Banks and all are making use of Twilio to help them send text messages to customer automatically in events such as spending of more than $1000 on items. So what I was sceptical about this service was the rising trend in people using mobile application like Wadsapp and not using text messaging. Likewise, Peter do concur with me, but he also highlighted that Twilio is not targeting the masses on person to person messaging, rather, they are focusing on the bigger initiative like businesses. I think this is a very crafty and smart move simply because they have figured that the money will not come in from the masses but at the corporate level. I think it is incredible to also have the privilege to tour the entire company, and the experience was unforgettable. The pantry area, to the different levelled working desk and the amazing open concept inside.
Our visit to Paypal was a particularly interesting and engaging experience, we visited their showroom on their current and future developments and were pretty blown away by how our two showroom host, Eric & Michael, presented all the new up and coming features that Paypal are working on providing. The most impressive feature which showed us were the integration of their Paypal application with the POS systems in which they are trying to provide a more hands-free and friction-less kind of customer experience to the future customers (through the use of a bluetooth beacon). The entire experience at Paypal i believe for most of us can be summarized by 3 letters IDP (Interactive Design & Prototyping) which most of us took this semester. Paypal gave us a industry level showcase of many concepts that we learnt in class such as personas, scenarios, context & presentation of our work. The moment he pulled open that closet full of climbing gear to mimic what a store would look like i was blown away!
- There's an emphasis placed on Superb Customer Experience here in the US.
- A good presentation of the prototype/product, engages the audience not only visually and through audio effects but also can involve items that showcase the real life scenario while using the product
Singtel Innov8 was completely different experience from Paypal, We had two great hosts, Jeff (Super Experienced Veteran in the VC World) & Daryl, who shared with us what Singtel Innov8 is about and how they function as a venture capital firm. Our team were able to have a very meaningful Q&A session with our host, conversing about a wide spectrum of topics ranging from how venture capitals work to what are the new technologies that they are looking into in the future. From our engagement we talked about how they chose their companies, their experiences with some of their failures and successes and also about what they are looking out for in companies. One main key point that i got out from our conversation with Jeff was that failure is common in the valley and it's the thing that makes the valley special, they encourage failure and risk as it makes them wiser and gives them the tacit knowledge on how to avoid the same mistakes!
- We have to learn to not be fixated on our idea and learn how to let go of it if it's not working out!(Something like functional fixation in IDP lol) If we don't we're just going to keep burying ourselves in the same spot and never trying other stuff.
- Failure here in the valley is much different from back in Singapore, it's seen as more of a learning experience and has more of a positive light on it than back in Singapore. - also TAKE RISKs!
Twilio i believe was the highlight of the day, we were hosted by Peter (a fellow Singaporean working here) and he gave us a pretty thorough run through of the entire company and its services which left us pretty much only personal questions such as what the company culture was like etc to ask. I was particularly impressed by the entire culture and the environment of the company, how it functions, how they encourage their employees to explore and provide the more self-driven environment to their employees. The company seem to give a very welcoming and warm working environment where everyone knows everyone and are mostly self-driven but yet towards the company's main objective. The most memorable thing at the company i believe was the pizza box framed up at the entrance, with the initial brainstormed ideas of what Twilio was going to be scribbled on top of them by the founding fathers of the company. Back in my mind i could picture a few guys sitting by a box of pizza in one of their garages and brainstorming of an idea to start their company with, it really showed me how any ideas that we can think of at any time might be small or unrealistic at that time but given some time and effort it could be made into a brilliant idea such as Twilio.
- How the simplest brainstorming session can come out with something small which can lead to something big like Twilio!(IDP is LIFE)
- The flat structure of companies here makes it easier for employees to work together and communicate as one unit/family everyone knows everyone! No More Cubicles/Hierarchies Please!
The Big Company: PayPal
Size of company: MNC
Office Campus: Huge
Love how the office campus is so huge, smthing you definitely do not see in Singapore companies, even for the MNCs, due to land constraints and high rentals. And how there are outdoor spaces and cozy corners for work and play (the volleyball courts, tennis courts and gym!)
Sean was telling us about the barriers of entry for other companies handling ePayment to get licenses approved in the various countries, which gives PayPal some sort of a shield from competitors. But even with efforts to go beyond being just a wallet for ePayments and to improve relationships between customers and merchants (as we all saw during the showcase exhibition), I feel that PayPal has sort of maxed out its potential with ePayment processes. Not many people would appreciate the need to take out their phones, check-in wherever they go, whether individually or in groups. Like, I would not want that.
But the hands-free idea using the beacon technology would be something good. And it would make more sense, so you do not have to constantly use the app before you enter the store / in the store itself. So maybe that is why Sean was very frank when he told us about how only time would tell if the initiatives being rolled out and tested by PayPal would be good, as good as the walk-through experience we had!
Oh and the driveway into PayPal is really pretty. Love the trees with red leaves and the maple trees!
The small company (in terms of employees in SF): innov8
Size of VC staff: Very small
Office Space: in CBD area, small
I always thought a VC would be managing the firm it was investing in. Like their financials, staff recruitment and all. But today Jeff said that they do not manage financials, but they do have access to it, while they do help in staff recruitment, thanks to the networks they have.
Their office space in the CBD area looks really nice too, with the high ceiling and all.
Jeff also elaborated more on the Silicon Valley culture where it is quick and easy to open a company as it is to close one down. The most interesting thing from today that I took away with me on this visit is this quote by Jeff describing the Valley: "The Valley is also about failures as much as it is about successes, especially failing quickly."
The medium sized company: Twilio
Size of company: 200ish employees
Office Space: A whole floor with an open concept without designated cubicles
Love the company layout and arrangements once again, feels like a second home, where you can work and have fun at the same time. Their logo (the four circles) and colour choice (red) is recognisable and creative and their office furniture matched the colours of it too, which include their cafeteria seats and cushions on sofas, which were red.
Peter explained Twilio's aim of being the common point between customer information and customer communication, by using Twilio numbers to allow people to send messages to other people without actually knowing their actual contact numbers.
Peter also pointed out the difference between popular forms of personal messaging nowadays (like Whatsapp and other "messaging over the internet" services) and business messaging (sending notifications, advertisements, one-time-password information etc. using SMSes). So he pointed out that Twilio helps a lot with the business to peer (B2P) perspective of messaging.
He also pointed out to us that it was easy for Singaporeans to get a Visa to work here because the quota for the number of Visas permitted was separate from others <H-1B Visa>. One of the ways to get Visas were for example, if the company that you interned or worked for could sponsor or recommend you for.PayPal - One of the largest e-commerce companies
What I learnt about PayPal is that despite the market leader in internet payments, they are still looking for ways in which to stay ahead of their competitors (though their attitude about it is slightly less urgent than the small startups trying to break into the industry). The eBay and PayPal showcase of their ongoing projects was an eye-opener for me and it was especially memorable because we could see applications of certain things like personas/scenarios/use cases that we learnt in our Interaction Design and Prototyping module being put into an actual context. Since many of us recently took the module, it was fresh on our minds and very relatable. We were all awed by the presenters' fantastic presentations and how easy their application was to understand. However, some of us did think that the applications they came up with were mostly good-to-haves with a few non-obvious loopholes (why not just use paywave for quick payment insead?) and they were still far from game-breaking concepts we were expecting to see. Nevertheless it showed us things beyond what we could just learn in a classroom such as the usage of personas and scenarios being put into action in a presentation and so it was a really valuable experience for us.
innov8 - Venture Company by Singtel
The visit to innov8 was a rather informative session where we learnt much about the work of a venture capitalist company. We learnt about Silicon Valley having the right culture and the right infrastructure that eventually breeds success that continues other cycles that lead to more success. The team at innov8 also mentioned about their company selection process and how they tend to look out for and choose to capitalize on good situations whereby the right team comes along with the right idea at the right time. Partnerships between VCs and the company they invest in is like one of marriage - whether you like it or not you will be stuck in it long-term, thus why they choose to reject great ideas if they do not think they can work with the team that came up with it. There were also insights about how we should not worry about failing as failing is normal and even the investors expect failures to happen (but they also expect one to learn something out from it)! However, one is expected to fail fast so time and money is not wasted. And if one learns nothing after failing many times, he continues to waste time and money. Much like how we should not have functional fixation on designing applications, we should also not be fixated on one single product. It was a pretty educational experience here as there were too many things that we learnt which we would not have known about unless we went through the process ourselves.
Twilio - a Rising Startup
My main takeaway from Twilio is that a customer-centric company has it much better in a country like America where the consumers are more vocal and more willing to provide constructive feedback. With good feedback, the company is able to improve on their products and give consumers even greater quality products. We also learnt that people in Silicon Valley are more likely to tell us about the positives and how one is capable of succeeding, whereas people in Singapore or Asian countries in general will be quicker to put you down on your risky endeavors. Twilio itself may not be the best example of such situations however, as in its early days, many people mentioned that they were merely providing APIs and not an actual product and that it was never going to succeed. Turns out, by providing great documentation and making APIs easy for use was a great move. Recently, Twilio even ended up becoming one of the best startups in Silicon Valley. Twilio is currently primed for even more success as they expand their reach to more countries and more developers start to use Twilio for telecommunication in their projects. The most respectful aspect of Twilio is how they provide incredible service by going out of the way and taking the initiative to help you in your Twilio-related projects. It is a great way to not only build relationships with their users but also score points with potential users as they would feel much more inclined to try Twilio's API with the quick help and good customer experience. Most importantly, I can't wait to incorporate Twilio into my next project!
The first company that we visited was Paypal. While paypal and Ebay split, they were working well together in combining their technological ideas. We got to see the showcase of the future technologies Paypal was coming up with, integrating these technologies together with Ebay's systems. What we learned from one of our module (Interaction and Design Prototyping), was applied here. There were personas to make us 'connect' with the character and scenarios for us to understand the context of the application use. We were introduced to future technologies such as Paypal Check-In which could be integrated to many parts of the sales process. They were really into the whole enhanced user experience. The final showcase was amazing, We saw a full scenario of how a sale was processed from the customer's first selection of an item to the retailer's customised interaction with the customer and how simple it was to pay with Paypal. However, all these technologies were presented in the best possible situation. Such a situation would never happen in real life. While the world is moving towards the internet of things, most retailers, especially the older ones, could be resistant to such movement to this trend. Furthermore, what part of what Paypal is introducing creates a certain degree of trust. This form of trust is hard to be realised in the real world. For example the Point Of Sale system in which customers can make their purchase on their smartphone, let's say a bag of coffee powder, walk in to the store, grab the item, and walk out without even going through the cashier who would be busy serving customers getting coffee. There might be instances where people might just grab the coffee powder and just walk out without even actually paying for it. Even though these items might be small cheaper items, if a lot of people are doing this, this could result in a big loss in revenue to the retailer. One other aspect that I saw was interesting was the fact that the customer has to be connected at all times. Both internet and bluetooth must be turned on at all times for this "Enhanced User Experience" could take effect. By leaving it turned on, it sucks up a considerable amount of the phone's battery life. Hence, while Paypl and Ebay painted a much desired future of the sales process, most of it comes with a price.
Next, we visited Innov8. Innov8 just moved to a new office in the Bay area so there were no one there except the hosts. They were the only Venture Capitalists (VC) that we were going to visit. We learned about the process of getting funding and the difficulty of getting such funding from them. Innov8 tends to look for new and upcoming technologies and companies that could be used in Singapore's Singtel and their subsidiaries. While Innov8 only funds a tiny fraction of the startups that applied, they do provide some form of guidance as well as link startups to connections. Startups could leverage on the wealth of knowledge of business making as well as the connections that VCs might be willing to provide. Of course, funding is only one part of making a business a success. Innov8 also provide extnsive support to the companies they are funding. Such support might include creating a monetising business plan, connections to potential buyers of the company's products/services and connection to people who might be interested in working for the startup. The main learning point from Innov8 was Silicon Valley's ecosystem of giving back. Startups that became successful are willing to dedicate their time to guide new startups that might be struggling to take flight. They are not selfish and are willing to share their knowledge to anyone that might be interested.
The final company for the day was Twilio. Twillio's product is an interesting one. Rather than selling some application or a physical product, they sell an API. Their API is basically just used for sending communicating between people in different countries. From what I learned from the presentation that the host made as well as the question that was asked, Twillio initially started as an idea and quickly achieved hypergrowth through listening to feedback by their users and continuously improving their service. We also learned more about their culture there especially how they value the failures of their employees and treasure those who make risks and fail more than those who just play it safe. This is one aspect that you rarely see in Singapore since in Singapore, any mistake could mean the end of your job.
The first think that amazed me is how professional the demonstration by Paypal is. There is definitely a reason why companies like Paypal can achieve success and stay competent in the market for a long period of time, but I did not expect such high level of competency in these companies. Comparing the prototype and use case they walked through with us with our school project, I was totally overwhelmed. There are clear issues to be solved, user friendly solutions and demonstration in a context that is really close to real life set up. The amount of details in the walk through is huge. Another thing that amazed me is the vision Paypal has in mind, they are fairly competent in the online transaction market, but they have already worked on future products in 3-5 years’ time. I believe this kind of vision and planning is the key to keep a company staying competent in the industry.
However, I believe most of us actually were quite shocked by Sean, our host’s response. When we were thinking how great it will be to work in such good companies, he actually does not want to stay. It is because Paypal has become too big and the efficiency level and innovation level have been dropping, and he is more interested in startups which probably will have very fast growth. This surprised me and I started to feel the culture in the valley.
Innov8 is the only Venture Capitalist that we are going to visit in the valley. The Managing Director, Jeff provided us with a different perspective in the valley from Technology companies. He shared with us VC’s view on man industries, and the things they are looking for in the company, such as the product, the team and others. Not only Innov8, the whole VC industry is quite supportive in the valley, they have faith in the companies they invested and tried not to interfere too much, I believe this is one of the differences between the VCs in the valley and the VCs from other places.
However, the support from Innov8 seemed to have quite a limit, eventually Jeff still focused on profit. It is understandable because VCs have to make profit to stay alive, but this alert to me that as a startup, funding is really critical to the business, understand your investor and their intention is so important. Currently, I do not have much knowledge about funding, but since me and my friend are looking into startups, I believe this is the time to start picking up this knowledge, otherwise we will only regret in the future when conflicts happen with investors and the company fails eventually.
The presentation done by Twilio was not very interesting. Peter from sales gave us a very general introduction about Twilio’s business and its strategy while we actually were much more interested in the inside story of the company. Apart from the disappointment, I realize Twilio put customer service at a very high level, they will email the users who signed up to facilitate their usage of Twilio, our friend Brandon had great personal experience with that. For a startup, every customer matters and they can eventually lead to more customers if they experience good services and products. Hence, Twilio managed to maintain every single customer who signed up for their services and build customer based on that. I think this strategy is something that I can learn can apply in any startups that I may work for.
The main thing I learnt from the companies we visited is not something specific, but a spirit. It is mind blowing to see people actually work and live with such a different mindset. There are people who thinks Paypal is going to fall soon and wants to join a startup. There are people who have already quit a top 10 rising startup to join a new startup with only 3 to 5 people. The people in the valley are not afraid of failure and risk, new ideas and failures are highly appreciated. Jeff, one of our hosts from Innov8, actually explains the reason behind this, “people in the valley think of ways to bring you up when you are in trouble, but people from other places think of ways to pull you down. Everyone in the valley is trying to give back to the community.” There is no doubt that all the young people dare to try any new ideas and this provides more chances of success and lead to the overall success of the valley.
Another different mindset they have is judging by result, not the appearance of working. Most companies have no fix working hours, you propose the work that you are going to finish this week and you schedule your own working time. This makes me think why most companies follow a strict working hours at the first place, isn’t the quantity and quality of the work done more important to the company rather than the appearance of working?
Personally, the atmosphere here really makes you want to start up your own companies. In the valley, you feel everything is possible and you can be the next one that change the whole world.
Visiting Innov8 was exciting for me as I plan to run my own business in the future. Getting behind how these VCs think is the first step to getting funds from them. Of course funds only keep a company survival in the market but does not guarantee success. Hence, What VCs are providing are not only funds but support, not just support but massive support like helping out with marketing, hiring (Which i feel is one of the most difficult thing) and valuable industry advice etc etc. Therefore, learning to pitch to them is a very crucial skill in today's world if i want to start something. Not only that, engaging with Innov8 allows me to understand the industry they are looking at which tells me which industry still has a gap or potential. During our conversation, they mentioned technologies like drones and surveillance stuff could be a big thing and something worth investing. This leads me to think of its potential and a current company exploring drones is Facebook. Making use of drones, they want to make internet as accessible as possible.
Twilio is really something interesting for me as i have never come across or even heard of a company doing what they are doing. Creating APIs to facilitate communication seems like something that can change the world. It leads me to think how many people are really using their services. Most importantly, being one of the hottest startups around, understanding their culture really shows me what a successful startup need in order to thrive and constantly innovate.
Our first stop was Paypal which was an eye opener to the entire group; not just the ideas but also the delivery. The way they presented their already in-implementation and futuristic ideas was fantastic and most of us could relate to what we had learnt from IDP. By fusing the user's behaviours together with how their products can come into play has helped us realised the amount of value Paypal's ideas can offer. One of the main feature that I felt was very useful to a consumer was the convenience from its seamless paying process. Consumers can forget about endless queuing. Just scan the product's barcode, pay using the Paypal app and verify your E-receipt. We were also fortunate to be able to discuss the pros and cons of working for a big firm with our host Shawn.
Singtel Innov8 - Tale of Marriages
The second company we visited was a venture capital firm, Singtel Innov8. We had a fruitful discussion with the host where we learnt more about their business model and how they actually function. One interesting takeaway was how Innov8 act like a matchmaking company; matchmaking startups to Singtel. We also discussed with Jeff the approach that Innov8 will take when they are faced with a promising startup with a concrete idea or a startup that has a slim chance of making profit. It is quite interesting to learnt that for the latter case, Innov8 will always try to help to the startup in any possible way they can before rejecting them. If you are planning to start your own company, do consider failing early if you had the chance to do so. Because not only can you limit the amount of money that you will be wasting, it can help detect problems in the earlier stages. Potential entrepreneurs are advised to apply for funds from VCs as you can really improve on your ideas while expanding your network.
Honestly this is was one of the companies that caught my eye. Generating revenue in an unique way - through API usage. Twilio has gone on to produce APIs for developers all around the world to use for their communication applications. The company is still in the midst of expansion as they seek to form partnerships with major telcos all around the world. One of the interesting thing that we learnt from our host Peter was that employees in Twilio are very open and helpful. This emphasises the open culture in the valley and how people here are receptive to critiques and feedbacks. They started small and like other startups, they do have their fair share of challenges. For example, nobody would think that they will be successful in breaking into the telecommunication market given that there are tons of already free traditional communication channels out there like Wadsapp, Voice Nexmo etc. The part about convincing people to support and believe in your product is a major part to kick start your project. And it is because of the help that Twilio is always willing to provide to her users, it has made developers all around the world comfortable in using its technology.
Visiting a VC – Well that was probably the only time I have ever been in a VC. Singtel’s direction in moving towards a global presence is quite interesting. For Singapore’s only telecom provider in the olden days to one of the few companies who’s from Singapore and moving in to the global location of Silicon Valley. Visiting a VC was quite an eye opener – while all of us want to visit a start up and probably own a start up, we do need a VC one day to fund us. I asked that if VCs are relevant in today’s era of crowd funding. As mentioned by the host, it is important to note that a lot of VCs are avoiding companies that are making hardware – this is where crowd funding come in. in a way VCs are looking for things that will last in the long run, by being easily changing it(software) reiterating it. it’s true today that the hardware becomes ‘irrelevant’ software changes everything and has been setting the direction. For example, Apple’s iPhone – while the hardware is good, the software is awesome – SDK that allows limitless options when developing apps, good user experience etc.
Lastly, Twilio’s visit was really my first visit to an proper start up – the start up that I really want to be in, open concept, free drinks(ahem, some ahem big MNC only had a vending machine) makes the MNC look funny. Sometimes when we work it’s about the quality of work and if your work is done – not about the hours you put in it the company. Having perks in the company will definitely help the younger generation of workers who don’t believe in wearing a suit and tie(heck I don’t even believe in wearing one for even the most important presentation) it’s not about what you wear, or how you smell or about how you walk, but it’s about the quality of work you do. Take Twilio for example this is exactly what they believe in. and they are not one of the top few startups in the world according to Linkedin. As we are moving towards an impatient world(my 3g is sooo slow, 4g better) a company that can meet the client/market needs by having the right people. And the right people are essentially more important than the CEO – so the companies got to love them and respect them, give them the perks. A person’s idea can only go so far – it’s the human assets that make a person realize his dreams. So treat them right – if they want to wear crocs to work let them be! If they don’t even want to wear clothes, let them be! Twilio is just that and that company looks like an awesome company to work for.A start on the actual purpose of our TSM journey brings us to PayPal as our 1st stop. Firstly, if you think SMU presentations spoil the market, whatever was seen in PayPal basically blows your mind and throws our style of presentation back to stone-age. Smooth, fluid, captivating, enchanting, informative are but some words off the top of my head that I use to describe the scenarios that were painted to us. The show & tell on the various technology and its employment that PayPal has in the pipeline certainly makes one excited and over the moon on the thought of being in the age where we will be able to enjoy this whole new level of customer experience and satisfaction. I’m just glad these guys and their props aren’t taking the same modules as me. Hopefully next semester’s FYP and IDP’s presentations will be taken to a whole new level, I’ll keep my eyes and ears peeled for this.
However, for me, the highlight of this visit was the takeaway given by Shawn, our PayPal host. His words, purpose and vision of his work and life here in the Valley certainly made an impression about the expectations and hopes one has and should have when working for startups. The drive, desire, hunger and curiousity one adopts and puts to action will be invaluable and fruitful when working in a small company as oppose to an established one.
With Innov8 however, the magic of the interaction with our hosts lies on its candidness and insightful exposure to the world of the VC. Knowing how they select, operate, maintain this relationship and value-add to their invested companies shows the indispensable and mutual relationship both parties share, which is akin to a life-long marriage. However, unlike a marriage, it seems this one is somewhat difficult for either party to extricate themselves from. Hopefully, I won’t find myself in such a situation when the time comes. Apart from this, a mantra I absolutely agree, though not shared by people our region, is the exposure and willingness to fail and failing fast mentality which is unique to the Valley and difficult to replicate across the seas. This I believe is the secret sauce to a conducive and nurturing environment for startups to thrive and innovation to grow. This is also one of the driving factors for me to cast my sights overseas if ever I want to start one up myself.
Twilio was the only company as of now that allowed us a view of the workspaces here in the Valley. While not as extravagant or fancy as the stories heard of from Google or Facebook, the atmosphere and environment here at Twilio was one that is cosy and exciting. The presentation given to us by our host, Peter, was very informative. However, the learning point for me was how joining an established company provides a firm foothold and exposure to the world of startups, how in-demand or wanted you are depends on your experience and area of expertise and by leveraging on it, your ability to be mobile between companies. While having consistency in one’s portfolio is important, I always applied this concept to corporation and organizations and not startups. This insight caused me to rethink and ponder on what I really want to do when I graduate.
P.S. The selection of reward cards here in Starbucks, USA is ridiculous. In SG there are only 2-3 choices whereas here, there are like 20-30 choices. Much like the variety of choices one can have in Foodmax or Walmart, it can be a headache to be spoilt for choice.
PayPal When I was introduced to PayPal before, I know it as a platform that consolidates my payment options into a single convenient account. That remains true until today. PayPal model to monetise their platform is through the merchants - charging a certain percentage on top of the charges incurred onto the consumer. In order to reduce cost and maximise profit, PayPal chooses to allow consumer to have floating Balances in the consumers’ accounts which could also be used as a payment options. PayPal could easily be the most prominent choice as a payment medium until the rise of Google Wallet and more recently Apple Pay. It is known that Credit Card companies prefers the two newer platforms because of the lack of floating balances, which would be better for them. This spells trouble for PayPal. While PayPal could still enjoy it’s user base on the web, the growing nature of the mobile space, which is coupled with their respective store and payment services, is alarming enough to call for attention. I believe that it will be a matter of time when these newer modes of payment will become preferred choice everywhere. Then PayPal will lose it’s competitive edge.
Lucky enough (perhaps), PayPal is working on various products, this time, to a different target audience. Their pseudo-live demo showed us their plans ahead, which seems to revolve around actual physical stores and restaurants with their new concept of “PayPal Check In” and their beacon products. While the presenter, presents only the perfect use case (as anyone would expect them to), they still need a lot of ground work in order to convince the masses to hop onto their new bandwagon.
Innov8 This TSM is focusing on technopreneurship and there is always a focus on start up companies. Visiting Innov8 gave us the opportunity to take the point of view of the VC. This is one of the important visit because in order to start a company, we need to know the needs and goals of the VCs in order secure fundings and get them to invest on the new company. The host, Jeff, says that when a VC chose to invest on a start up company, it is like a marriage and it is long term. It is important that the VC analyse the idea of the company to ensure that it is sound, sustainable and eventually, profitable. Jeff also said that VCs also expect failure - loads of them, and it is important these failure is detected early which he term as “fail fast” in order to minimise losses to the VCs. While it appears that VCs is there to help, it as it is, is also there to get a slice of the pie, for their risk taking in investing a start up company.
Twilio Unlike many other companies, Twilio primarily provide APIs, which blurs out the aspect of communicating with communication providers from software that requires such functionality. The host of Twilio says that it is in their nature that they listen to the needs of their customers that helps them to improve their products and achieve hypergrowth to the point that they are one of the top startup companies to look out for in San Francisco.
PayPal – Still innovating the payment experience
It was exciting to finally be at the door steps of one of the renowned Silicon Valley tech companies, PayPal. The new/upcoming products tour at PayPal provided an unprecedented experience. Having been interned at a Point-Of-Sale payment related solutions provider (PureCommerce, SG) during the summer, I was able to relate to problems and demands in the payment industry. Although the payment industry has not seen any practical innovative implementations, there exist many creative solutions that promise to simplify and enhance the payment experience of both the merchants and customers. The new product concepts tour at PayPal attested to exactly that.
Many new payment solutions like Square face difficulties in establishing their reputation in the payment industry, because they are relatively new and lack the global presence. PayPal has circumvented their challenges by slowly establishing its reputation worldwide, acquiring millions of users and adhering to industry regulation (PCI Compliancy). A tech startup experience difficulty in establishing reputation should find strong backing perhaps through Venture Capitalists like Y-Combinator.
PayPal, akin to other matured tech companies face problems with practical innovation. Perhaps, with the exception of Google. This is the reason why it took PayPal until 2014 to realize that it needed a in-context checkout feature that does not require users to be redirected to it’s website when checking out on other e-commerce sites. Microsoft faces this problem as well. They are obsessed with testing out conceptual ideas and mostly fail to realize those solutions in the real world. Although tech companies have been making the world a better place, “dinosaurs” are an exception.
SingTel Innov8 – Strong support and financial backing
It was indeed a different perspective on the start up culture of Silicon Valley from the eyes of a Venture Capitalist. Seemingly technopreneurs fall in to different patterns that VCs are able to identify and determine who to support and who to back away from. Experienced VC personal would have gained sufficient startup pattern recognition proficiency that helps them to evaluate a startup accordingly. “The first 10 million is where you learn.” VCs learn and mature from their initial 10 – 20 million investments and from then onwards gain the capability and experience to focus on potential startup investments.
Insights into how VCs, especially SingTel Innov8 match-make startups to enterprises or potential consumers was an interesting take away. For instance, Innov8 was able to provide the incubation at SingTel for one of the startups to demonstrate their solution that reduces electricity usage in data centers and thus drive down utility cost. This story depicts situation faced by many of the startups without strong backing. VCs indeed provide a more significant support than just merely financial backing.
Twilio – Time for an upgrade to telecommunications
Twilio is brilliant! Twilio has encapsulated traditional telecommunication and provides value added features on top it. It is about time traditional telecommunication such as voice and text got it’s fair share of innovation. (*Yes, texting is traditional in todays context with the popularity of WhatsApp, Telegram, etc.)
The company has a user centric development methodology (Agile) that listens to the consumers of its API to decide it’s future development milestones. Apart form development, the company currently focuses on establishing it’s global presence by partnering with many of the world’s telcos. As the company is currently in talks with SingTel, winning a deal with them would definitely allow the company to win many of the Asian telcos and also benefit from SingTel’s percense in various regions.
Twilio has a unique business model of monetizing via API usage. Instead of providing a off the shelf solution, Twilio has gone with providing API for other developers. I think it is a clever way of providing service that has allowed the company to only focus on the core technology and allow other developers to creatively incorporate their API in to their applications. This method also creates a dependency on Twilio’s technology and has the potential to cause many dependent organizations and developers to come to defense of Twilio if it were ever on the brink of shutting down.
The tour around the office once again depicted the Silicon Valley culture of open office and advocacy for work-life balance.
It always intriguing to think about how such a huge company like eBay and Paypal works. With operations and services worldwide, Paypal has established itself as one of the prime payment gateways for eCommerce. When our host, Shawn brought us around the company, the sheer size is overwhelming. Employees are all over the vicinity and the entire culture is very different from what we have in Singapore. In Singapore, we are required to be at our desk from 9am to 6pm, with an hour lunch break in the center. However, over at San Francisco, they don't practice such 'rules'. Work time is very flexible as long as the work you produced is of good quality and on time. Shawn was very open with us on the trend of Silicon Valley and the IT industry. It was indeed a wholesome experience to be hearing from someone with the real knowledge of working in San Francisco. This information can never be googled or simulated back in classrooms.
Singtel Innov8
Usually, we would always hear about how companies or innovations expand to Singapore, but rarely the other way. Singtel Innov8 is a Venture Capitalist arm of the Singtel Group with $250 million worth in investments. It was a really meaningful session as the Managing Director of Innov8, Mr Jeff Karras shared with us his experience in the valley and what kind of start ups they are looking out for. It is rare to hear from a venture capitalist point of view on how they source for new ideas and innovations. An idea, no matter how good, requires proper financial support from people like Innov8 in order to make it far. As a result, it was important for us to understand the key areas that they are looking out for. One of the key phrases that Jeff mentioned is "fail early and move on". It is very important to keep ourselves in check so that we know when should we hold on to our ideas and when would be a good time to let it go. The earlier that you realised that you have failed, the better it will be for your next project or idea, as one usually won't make the same mistakes again. All in all, it was really an enriching session for us to hear from their point of view.
Twilio
Interestingly, their business model is to sell APIs, which is a rarity even though APIs are in high demand nowadays. Even though they have yet to penetrate into Singapore's telecommunications market, they are very well-known in the IT industry and are even ranked to be the top few startups in Silicon Valley by Linkedin. It was fascinating to hear from them about how they managed to survive and thrive so well in Silicon Valley, where there are so many similar startups around. Their entire concept was very relevant to programmers like us, and we were able to relate to what they are doing and developing very easily. The tour around the office also demonstrated to us the culture of working in a startup in Silicon Valley. It is a very chilled and relaxed environment where they value quality more than quantity. One of the most alluring point that captured my attention was a framed pizzabox with scribblings. It was actually where the entire idea of Twilio was developed. It is very interesting to imagine how a group of like minded guys sit around the empty box and started to pen down their thoughts. As such, it struck me that it is very important to get like-minded and driven people in group in order to for a start up to be successful. The initial stage is where most of the magic happens.
Paypal
The first part of the Paypal visit was the exclusive commerce innovation showcase. The commerce innovation showcase gave us a glimpse of how Paypal transaction can occur in the different contexts, i.e restaurants, shops selling shoes and clothes and grocery stores.
In the grocery store example, the user can use the smartphone to check the price of the item. Once done, the user can use his Paypal account to purchase the item i.e tidbits. He or she will then show the e-receipt to the grocery shop employee before leaving the shop. Ideally, this will save the customers’ time as they can bypass the queue to purchase their item. The commerce innovation showcase also introduced new features such as the beacon that uses the blue-tooth technology. Essentially, customers can make purchases without taking their smartphones out. Another feature is the elimination of redirect page when the customers are making Paypal payment. This will greatly improve the user experience.
The next part of the Paypal visit was the discussion with our host regarding topics such as security, working experience and their future growth etc. We were given frank and meaningful insights about Paypal that cannot be found in the net.
Ultimately, the host has the belief that the Paypal beacon will be successful in the future. This serves as a motivation for him to continue his application development in Paypal.
Singtel Innov8
Being a venture capitalist, Singtel Innov8 is looking to invest in startups that have high potential. According to the hosts, SingTel Innov8 will invest in one startup out of the 100 startups that are seeking funds from them. However, they will try to help out some of the startups that are rejected. This is partly due to the “Wanting everyone to succeed” mentality in Silicon Valley which I believe does not exist in most parts of the world.
Also, they mentioned that they have no preferences for the startups that they want to invest in as they want to have an open mind.
Lastly, they talked about using data trends and past experiences to assist them in the startups to invest in.
Twilio
Twilio is a startup company that provides communication api for the firms. Essentially, it enables the firms to set up a conference session easily without worrying about the infrastructures such as the telecommunication companies and the content delivery networks in the world.
According to the host, Twilio expands its business model by increasing its partnerships with the telecommunication companies in the world. This will in turn allows Twilio to expand its customer base around the globe and gain higher profits.
Also, the host mentioned that telecommunication companies do not see Twilio as a foe. In fact, they see them as an ally as Twilio requires the telecommunication infrastructures for the communication api to function properly. On the other hand, Twilio makes the life of telecommunication companies easier by clustering the whole enterprise as a single unit.
Lastly, the host talked about the culture in Silicon Valley which is very different as compared to typical Asian countries. In Silicon Valley, failure is not as serious in Silicon Valley as compared to Asian countries. In fact, failures in Silicon Valley mean that the person will not commit the same mistake again which is seen as a plus point. As such, the people in Silicon Valley often take calculated risk, thus they have a higher chance of failure and also a higher chance of making it big!
