Difference between revisions of "1415T1g1 Silicon Valley/Participant Information/Reflection/8 Dec"
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| − | '''PayPal – Still innovating the payment experience | + | '''PayPal – Still innovating the payment experience<br> |
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. | 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. | ||
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| − | '''SingTel Innov8 – Strong support and financial backing | + | '''SingTel Innov8 – Strong support and financial backing<br> |
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. | 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. | ||
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| − | '''Twilio – Time for an upgrade to telecommunications | + | '''Twilio – Time for an upgrade to telecommunications<br> |
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.) | 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.) | ||
Revision as of 16:14, 10 December 2014
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.
Singtel Innov8 was completely different experience from Paypal, We had two great hosts, Jeff & 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.
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
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!
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.
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. Potential entrepreneurs are advised to apply for funds from VCs as you can really improve on your ideas while expanding your network.
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.
