Digital Frontiers Digital Frontiers by Maintain Media

On the show this week we are lucky to have Aaron Ross, the author of what has been called the 'Sales bible of Silicon Valley', "Predictable Revenue".

Aaron joined us to discuss "Impossible to Inevitable", the sequel to "Predicable Revenue", co-authored with Jason Lemkin from SaaStr,

Show Notes:
- The importance of 'nailing your niche'
- How overnight success is a fairy tale
- The critical nature of building a customer success team early
- The 'painful truth' and the 'year of hell'

On the show this week, we have serial entrepreneur and co-founder of venture builder Sugar, John Fearon.

We discuss venture building in Asia, personal ambitions for Sugar and a focus on profit versus raw growth.

Select companies Mentioned In The Episode:
- Sugar
- Dropmysite
- SOML - Story of My Life
- Rocket Internet
- Google - Apps for work
- Slack

Show Notes:
- What is venture building versus other industry players, e.g. an accelerator
- The importance and benefits of the venture building team
- Why sacrificing profit for growth isn't always the right thing
- A Singapore unicorn
- Expecting failure and learning
- Getting lost amongst digital marketing tools

On the show this week, we have the Co-founder of human capital management startup Payroll Hero, Stephen Jagger.

We discuss sources of engineering talent globally, raising external funding after initial bootstrapping and how a pain point at an existing business led to the idea behind Payroll Hero.

Select companies Mentioned In The Episode:

Payroll Hero
Predictable Revenue by Aaron Ross
Wordpress
Asana
Pipeline deals
Slack
Zapier
Stephen Jagger

Show Notes also at www.maintainmedia.com

Venture engineering and using Whistler in Canada as a source of mobile engineering talent
Selling in South East Asian emerging markets via partners
Building a 'internet' business in 1999 focused on SMEs
Identifying an existing business problem and developing a new company
Over communicating internally and externally in the startup environment
Raising funding for Payroll Hero

On the show this week, we have Joseph Ziegler from muru-D Singapore where he currently operates as the Entrepreneur in Residence. Telstra backed muru-D recently announced it's first accelerator class in Singapore, with 9 founders receiving funding.

We sat down with Joseph prior to the announcement to discuss his thoughts on the evolution of the Singapore start-up ecosystem, consumer vs enterprise start-ups, where to get the best coffee in Singapore, and much more.

If you're interested in the start-up scene, currently working at an established corporate and looking to make that leap to founder, this is an episode not to miss.

Select companies Mentioned In The Episode:

muru-D
Jimmy Monkey
Maison Ikkoku
Amazon Web Services
Buffer

Show Notes also at www.maintainmedia.com

We are excited to be talking to our first female founder Alexis Horowitz-Burdick this week. Alexis is the founder and CEO of Luxola.com, the number one online destination for beauty products in South East Asia.

Alexis discusses her transition from first successful exit, and the unique approach taken to build and launch her current venture Luxola.com. We then dive into how hiring the right people at startups evolves as the company grows, and finally strategies for organic growth through search engine marketing.

After recording this episode Luxola has recently been acquired by Sephora and parent company LVMH, which has been viewed as a very positive step in the Singapore startup ecosystem.

Companies Mentioned In The Episode:
Google Analytics
RJ metrics
Neo Innovation

Show Notes also at www.maintainmedia.com

Why Alexis started Luxola.com?
What lessons from your previous venture did you take into Luxola?
In the context of content marketing, what is your current strategy?
What was your starting strategy for user acquisition?
How did you reach MVP, initial tracking and funding?
What were the next major hires after the CTO?
What the characteristics of these hires?
What's your take on startup 'culture'?
What are you core KPIs?
Are you acquiring new users organically, what is your SEO development?
Is your search engine marketing in-house or agency based?
What tools do you use to organise yourself?

This week we are joined by Steven Goh the founder and CEO of mig, a global digital media company that is probably best known for it's chat application migme. On the show we cover Steven's early career in banking, his thoughts on fund raising, Taylor Swift's online presence, and the Singapore startup environment.

Show Notes:

Tell us the story about how you got into entrepreneurship?
When did you start your first business?
How did you juggle coding and management?
At what point in the growth of mig did you decided to raise money in Silicon Valley?
When making the move to Singapore, what was the core product value at that time?
What was the company culture at the time of the move?
What are the personality differences between the valley and the MNC hires you made in Singapore?
Knowing what you know today, what is your advice for fund raising?
Where regionally is the best to raise money?
What's your day to day like?
What market excites you the most for mig?
How are you monetising mig right now?
Have you played around with the recent video live streaming platforms e.g. Meerkat, Periscope, etc.?

www.maintainmedia.com