SHAH ALAM: Selangor Information Technology and E-Commerce Council (SITEC) organized the fourth Startup Selangor sharing session entitled Business Strategy on 18 September (Friday), 7:30pm – 9.30pm, at The Canvas, Damansara Perdana.
Hakim Albasrawy, founder of Makespace and Aquamob, and Derek Toh, founder of WOBB, were invited to share their startup experience, opportunities and challenges they are facing, and strategies they use for a successful business.
Albasrawy has developed a physical space in the heart of Kuala Lumpur to surface new creators and provide services to people looking to develop cool new things such as teaching university students to be web developers. He also created Aquamob.com to help farmers growing more efficiently.
After running lots of businesses, Albasrawy realized that entrepreneurs should do one thing first and do it well before moving to another new business.
“You should always try new things, but make sure your business suits others’ need.” He urged business owners to simplify ways to sell products or services, and ways to collect revenues.
In terms of marketing strategies, he relied on customers’ recommendations. “Customers recommend potential customers to me. Reference is important.”
In addition, he asserted that media work is important in order to spread and publicize our products or services.
Toh has set up WOBB, a job platform for professional Gen Y talents, in order to help young professionals finding employers with the right culture fit. WOBB’s mobile application was officially launched in April 2015, and has grown phenomenally since then.
“We have received 3000 resumes in 5 months, and 85 percent of the job hunters are below 30 years old.”He suggested entrepreneurs to shorten their startup time by bringing more workers in at the beginning.
“You are never prepared to try new things. Try first and see what happens,” he encouraged people to pour themselves out for new businesses.He also shared his USA trip experience with attendees. It was an eye-opener for him as he learnt so much from tech companies and people there.