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Synopsis
Throughout the podcast series, we have explored factors that make for successful, impactful businesses – but these undoubtedly come with challenges and hurdles along the way. In this episode, IPI invites enterprises who have faced hiccups along their innovation journey to share the top five most common or even unique/unconventional mistakes and their key takeaways, to enable others in the industry to learn and grow.
Transcript
0:01
Yvonne Chan
Welcome to futurepulse, a podcast series brought to you by IPI, your Innovation Partner for Impact. Together, we will explore how ideas, creativity and collaboration drive impactful innovation. Welcome to this episode of futurepulse - Overcoming Adversity to Succeed. I'm Yvonne Chan, and I'm joined by Amanda Khoo, Director of Nipo International, and Zoey Tong, Founder and CEO of Octomate. Welcome, ladies. Throughout this podcast series, we have explored factors that make for successful businesses. But success comes with many challenges and hurdles along the way. So for this particular episode, I want to hear your stories, what hiccups and roadblocks were encountered during your company's innovation journeys, and what key tips you can share with others in the industry today. But first, I would love for you to tell me a little bit about yourself and your respective companies. So, Amanda?
1:00
Amanda Khoo
Oh, I think the company Nipo has been around since 1980s, so it’s 41, a middle-aged company. We've started in the 80s to kind of ride on the HDB boom and mainly a liquid applied coating. 20 years ago, we decided to take the OEM route, basically private labels. And to allow us more time to focus on our core strength with manufacturing and research. And, you know, wanting to do manufacturing, you need to have a (wider) range of products. So, you know, innovation becomes the only way forward. So that's where we are today. As about me, I pretty much love moving around different jobs. And the advantage of having so many jobs in the last few yearshas given me a lot of exposure in different skills.
1:59
Yvonne Chan
I like what you say there, a middle-aged company, and so the only way forward is to innovate, right? The company has been around for 14 years. Zoey?
2:09
Zoey Tong
So contrary to Amanda, Octomate is actually only born two years ago. So we're really like a young baby.
2:16
Yvonne Chan
A baby.
2:16
Zoey Tong
Yes, exactly, you know, still crying and trying to make your way around the world. And yeah, so a quick introduction. I'm the co-founder of Octomate. And I look after the business side of things in the company, but really in a start-up environment, you know, like a crying baby, the truth is that everyone wears multiple and different hats. So I used to be a management consultant. And one day, I decided to actually just take the plunge to quit my nine-to-five stable job and start a start-up from scratch. So I don't think this is something that happened overnight. Like, I just wake up and boom, I send in my resignation letter. It's more like this part that is like within me for a long, long time, where I always knew I wanted to do something of my own, something that could create impact in this world we live in. So that was how Octomate came about two years ago. And today, we are one-stop workforce management software, with over 2,000 daily active users, where we help companies fully automate their HR processes. So while we can be used for white collar workers to manage their leave and expenses, our main target is actually the gig workforce, where they can get rostered, they can clock in and out on a solution and get paid instantly, as soon as their work ends.
3:37
Yvonne Chan
That's really pretty innovative and very refreshing right? Getting paid like InstaPay in this day and age. Very cool. And I do like both your analogies of a middle-aged company right just as still staying relevant as well as this infant start-up, navigating its way around the world. Amanda, you've said before that innovation, it is a more creative way to differentiate ourselves rather than competing with others on price for a similar solution, because you end up with price wars, and no one benefits from that. So given the exponential pace of innovation that's happened over the last few years. How is Nipo International still keeping pace on this front?
4:20
Amanda Khoo
Keeping pace with innovation is difficult. There are so many things happening around you that you can't quite say you know, you want to do this and then you worry about not doing something else. I think one of the things that we've learnt in the last 20 years and for as long as I have been with Nipo, I learnt one thing and that is to talk to as many people as you can. Everybody will tell you - do this, do that. Whether it's relevant or irrelevant, I think you go in with an open mind. Don't pigeonhole an idea. You know, this idea is only for one particular function or one particular usage. Don't pigeonhole that. Take in everything. Don't have your blinders on basically. And then, of course, when you get down to it, manage your costs. Well, I think one important thing we learnt through the whole journey is don't do it alone. It's not, research is not cheap. It doesn't come cheap, right? Don't do alone. It is going to drag the whole journey even longer. It's going to burn your limited resources. It's going to burn you out as a person. So spread that risk. And another thing that we've learnt through all this, I mean a lot of our successes we have today, a lot of it came about because we have very good relationships with the researchers. So that trust element is very important. So these are some of the things that we learnt along the way that helps us continue on this journey.
6:00
Yvonne Chan
Certainly, a lot of things to unpack there, you say talk to as many people as you can. Don't pigeonhole the type of business that you're in. Get rid of your blinders and definitely spread the risk, right? Don't do it alone because research can be very expensive. And this brings us back to the tenets of the purpose of this podcast series. Really, it's like the call to open innovation , right? Where you need to reach out for partnerships in order to grow, to expand and to get the resources that you lack. Zoey, how essential is it for a company to have in this current environment? A very clear understanding of its core competency? I mean, why did you choose to pair them, blockchain technology with workforce management under Octomate?
6:47
Zoey Tong
To your first question, I think it is really important for company to have a well-defined core competency and to understand it thoroughly because when you know what your company is good at, you can use it to base off your subsequent decisions. For example, where you should play in? In which market? In which segment? In which target group and which angle are you approaching the market with? So in Octomate's case, the thing about general HR software is that it is very much a red ocean where the market is extremely saturated and competitive. If we just become another HR software out there…
7:28
Yvonne Chan
There are so many.
7:29
Zoey Tong
Yes, exactly, we would very quickly die off. There is no way, you know, within like just two years, we could compete with companies out there with 20, 30 years of history, and you know, 5,000 more features in the codebase and still be able to thrive. So in our case, we needed to find a core competency that could keep us fighting as the underdog, like, you know, in "David and Goliath". And that was when we identified use cases to pair blockchain technology with workforce management. When many people hear about blockchain for the first time, they tend to associate it with cryptocurrencies, such as your Bitcoin or Ethereum. But in our case, we use blockchain in an enterprise setting, where we use it for our technology stack and to encrypt key data for additional security.
8:21
Yvonne Chan
Yeah, that's really key isn't it? Blockchain, that added level of security because it's immutable as well. And I was probably one of those that, when you mentioned blockchain, the first thing that came to mind crypto and Bitcoin but there's so much more that goes beyond that. But coming back to the title of our episode today - Overcoming Adversity to Succeed, I want to know from you both, what was some of the biggest adversities you faced on this innovation journey and how were these hurdles overcome or, you know, surmounted? Amanda?
9:00
Amanda Khoo
There are times you got to recognise that not every hurdle can be overcome. We just keep going. Sometimes the word we use internally is bulldoze, just keep bulldozing. Because sometimes there's just no way out, you just got to just try and try. Because we're in manufacturing, a lot of times, the researchers when they do a certain research or certain technologies at lab scale, bringing it from 100g to 100kg is a totally different concept. So that was something that you know, we learnt, it was not so straightforward - not knowing what the future entails, whether this research will turn out the way you want it. One thing that we always kick ourselves is not knowing when to stop. When a research is not successful. When a research hits its dead end, and you keep thinking that no, maybe that's not the dead end, just keep moving. I think that is sometimes also very painful for us, we got to learn that there are certain times that you really just have to let it go and move on to the next one. Yeah, and then of course, managing costs. Again, managing costs, like I said, no, don't do it alone. Go with the research, people. Go with the big brains. I think that will save you a lot of heartache and headache.
10:38
Yvonne Chan
One of the points that you mentioned is really very poignant, you know, knowing when to stop, right? It's not like flogging a dead horse but knowing that when it's time to call it quits. I think it can be very painful, and also very humbling. Zoey, did you encounter something similar? Some of these challenges that Amanda mentioned, although she is in a different industry from you?
10:58
Zoey Tong
Yes. So it's really quite interesting how we are in drastically different industries, you know, OEM and software. But we face the same challenges and the same approach, you know, it bulldoze your way through. So in our case, software development is never perfect. In every release deployment, which could solve bug number one, two and three; it would create like new bugs, four, five, and six.
11:22
Yvonne Chan
So that's when the solution creates more problems?
11:26
Zoey Tong
Yes, correct, with every release that you deploy. Because this is due to like code complexity, and how different functions are interlinked with one another. So sometimes fixing something would then break something else. So sometimes, you know, it becomes like this disastrous domino, where a fix for bug number one would impact function two, which goes on to impact function three, and so on.
11:47
Yvonne Chan
Sounds like a nightmare. How do you wake up from it? What do you do?
11:51
Zoey Tong
You don't wake up because you are awake. You can't sleep because of it.
11:57
Amanda Khoo
Yeah. Same problems.
11:59
Zoey Tong
So this can, you know, all get very overwhelming and demoralising very quickly, especially when you are doing something at the forefront. And you do not really have any playbooks or cheat codes to refer to. So along the way, we really learn is just to bulldoze. And it's all about progress and not perfection. The only way is really to push forth and so long, you are better off than yesterday, even if it's just by a tiny bit, you're already one step more towards where you want to be.
12:30
Yvonne Chan
I hear. Yes. Amanda, echoing what you just said, Zoey and it sounds like it really takes a lot of grit, sheer determination to continue to bulldoze and, you know, move away from what has failed. And like what you said, it is about progression and not perfection because no one, nothing is perfect, isn't it? Amanda, every product has a creative lifespan, right? And when you sense that Nipo's coatings were nearing the end of the product lifecycle, I understand that you felt that there was a need to future-proof your business. So when your company first embraced the concept of an open innovation, how hard was it to find, like-minded or maybe complementary collaborators? Was that a big challenge for you?
13:17
Amanda Khoo
We don't particularly go out to look for a complementary collaborator or a specific person because a lot of times we chance upon a particular technology when it's not meant for what we are looking to do. I don't know if it makes sense (to you), so I’ll give you an example. We were looking at a food packaging business. Now you wonder why is food packaging to do with the liquid applied coating right? So in the food packaging business, it was to keep food fresh, not so much moisture contamination and air contamination. Then we went into it, we were the only company in liquid applied coatings in that hold. Everybody else was a big MNC in food packaging. Then the scientists were saying, "Why are you in here?". Because we believe that if you can keep the food fresh, you can do the same for your house. We don't go out particularly looking for a specific technology, but we look at what is out there, and try to steer that tech, that research into a product hopefully that we can use for our industry. So the thing is, we know we don't have brains to go alone. We work with a lot of people like A*STAR. And through IPI, for example, IPI was a really nice matchmaker, I call them. They went out and introduced us to new research in the market, brought us to new institutions that we didn't know could be helping SMEs. So yeah, these are things that we do to help us explore new technologies in the market.
15:10
Yvonne Chan
Yeah, IPI has helped so many enterprises find the right partners, but it kind of ties back, what you just said, ties back to your earlier business ethos, right? Talk to as many people as you can because you never know what kind of synergies and opportunities have come up in your conversations. Zoey, Octomate. I understand is supported by many different well-established organisations, right? The middle-aged organisations, maybe as you know, coming back to that analogy of an infant start-up. So I want to know from you right now, as a start-up, what challenges were encountered in getting your ideas across, you know, when you have to talk to the big boys, for instance?
15:53
Zoey Tong
So as with every idea in the starting phase, you know, just like how every kid talks to their parents, there will always be like some naysayers at the very first instance. And this also holds true in Octomate's case. So furthermore, we were using blockchain, which is a relatively new technology in a market with limited use cases back then. So, when we first started pitching the idea across, we received a whole lot of questions on why blockchain. We had to constantly defend our idea and justify why we wanted to do things this way. To be really honest, it didn't feel too good, being constantly challenged and having to convince people. But later on, we realised that this is really part and parcel of starting up. I mean, if you're not thoroughly convinced of your own idea, who will be right? So, sometimes you can have good ideas that fail because of bad execution, and great ideas that fail just because it remains stuck in the head. So the key is really, to persevere, and again, I think bulldoze, if you really believe in what you're doing. And once you can show some initial success to justify and also inspire people with what you want to achieve, then you will start to get buy-in not just you know, from fellow babies, but also the big boys and the middle-aged companies. So I think, to really put it across simply, once you have people and organisations onboarded with the "Why", then the funding and the resources is really just the mechanics to enable it to happen.
17:21
Yvonne Chan
Very sound advice there. Getting the partners of the big boys onboarded with your "Why". So it also circles back to your first answer during our conversation today. And that is why it's so important to have a very clear understanding of your core competency or company's core competency and be able to push that idea through. I also want to know now, ladies, as a ballpark, how many rounds of failure did your company undergo for every round of success? Come, give me some numbers, right? I mean, Overcoming Adversity to Succeed. So, how bad is that?
18:04
Amanda Khoo
I think for me, we try not look at the failures, I think it makes you, it's not very helpful for the journey. If you look at the whole thing as a journey. I think we'd like to count our successes, no matter how small. Yeah, rather than count (the failures), just count the success and that is a real booster. Because it's okay, I have a little success here. And then let's come my next one. And my next one. And what we're looking for is the shorter gap between each success, you know, and I think that's more fun than trying to see how many that didn't go as planned.
18:42
Yvonne Chan
Well, you've said before, don't be afraid of failure, right?
18:45
Amanda Khoo
Yeah. But I think it's not when you count your success, it's not because you're afraid of failure. It's just that you're trying to look at the overall picture, I think getting to where you want to go.
18:57
Yvonne Chan
Getting to the end goal.
18:58
Amanda Khoo
Yeah. Although it's a journey, not a destination, but you know, focus on where you want to go. And just ignore the failures. Of course, you must learn from it. You know, don't waste every failure and say, “Oh, I failed and I'm going to sit down and sulk.” No, but focus on the success. Focus on the journey but learn from your failures. I think it's important. Yeah, I think the important thing though, a lot of people forget to tell us when we were learning, is soak up the success and enjoy it. Enjoy the successes. Pop a little champagne, even if you have no champagne, pop a beer, and enjoy it.
19:37
Yvonne Chan
Celebrate yourself. Celebrate your small wins.
19:40
Amanda Khoo
Yes, the little wins. I think that is important.
19:42
Yvonne Chan
Thank you, Amanda. Zoey, I want to hear your thoughts on this as well.
19:48
Zoey Tong
Okay, so to me, I think failure is a hypothetical word. I think of it, as you know, success is like having this choice of three doors that you would like to enter and only behind one door, there lies that pot of gold, for lack of a better term, right? But every failure where you choose the wrong door, kind of reduces that probability where you can find a correct door. So every failure actually points you towards the success, in Amanda's words, you learn from that failure because it's a lesson learnt that will propel you towards the right direction, towards finding that correct door to open ultimately.
20:21
Amanda Khoo
Yeah! I think very well said, Zoey.
20:24
Yvonne Chan
You ladies are giving me very wonderful analogies. Today, I'm thinking of opening doors and hoping I get that door with a pot of gold and, you know, old and young companies. But Zoey that note, how do you intend to continue differentiating Octomate in this very competitive, very lively blockchain landscape? I mean, if I've had to ask you to highlight some common mistakes made by similar start-ups today, what would that be?
20:50
Zoey Tong
I've once learnt from a mentor that the key to differentiation is really a four-letter word, "PAIN” - pain. So by solving important pain points of clients, in a better or faster or cheaper way, you're effectively differentiating yourself against your competitors. In our case, in software development, we are continuously working very closely with our clients to build new features and enhancements to solve their pain. We are always building but we build deliberately. We co-create roadmaps with our clients, and have them beta test new features. This helps us stay close to the market needs and remain relevant and differentiated. This syncs to your next point on some common mistakes by similar start-ups. So back to the world of like software development, developers would tell you any day that anything and everything can be coded and completed. While this is technically true, where you can actually really do any features that you can think of, as a product focus start-up, it gets very easy to fall into this development pit hole. So you start building feature A, and then you realise, “Oh, I can also do feature B, feature C, feature D, and so on.” At the end of the day, you end up with a product with 1,000 features, but 90% of the time, only the top 10 features are being used. We have also fallen into that trap before. But then we quickly realised that we have to reshuffle our priorities and focus together with our clients to co-create and co-develop. So instead of building all and every feature that we can think of, we work with our clients to identify what they would use the most. So we focus on 10% of the features that deliver 90% of the value, rather than you know, 90% of the features that deliver 10% of the value. So we have to pick our battles, right, as a baby, you can't be calling everywhere.
22:49
Yvonne Chan
That's true, coming back to your baby analogy again. But I really like that. Having focusing on 10% of the problems that delivers 90% of the value and co-creating that roadmap with your client in order to figure out where their pain points are, and then solve them, right? Pain relief for them. Oh, that's very interesting. Amanda, you want to comment on that, too? You've had a similar approach?
23:14
Amanda Khoo
Very similar, because from what Zoey said, when we go out and research, looking for new ideas, one of the things that we always do is talk to the customers, right? When I said earlier, talk to as many people as you want, as you can. When you talk to the customers, you know, what the market is looking for, you know, what the market pain points are, and when you start looking for new ideas, you try to you know, sort of cure that pain. So there's something that we do very similarly. I mean, from what Zoey have said earlier, very similar in our approach.
23:51
Yvonne Chan
I see a lot of synergies between the two of you and as well as I think values, very similar values between Zoey and Amanda. So ladies, to sum up our conversation today, what would be the top two lessons or pieces of advice you would have for other companies on similar paths to your respective industries? Amanda?
24:16
Amanda Khoo
I think one of the things that we do as a company is to be open minded about technology, don't pigeonhole, again coming back to the same thing, don’t pigeonhole. Always question, what if you take this technology and put in a different area. The “What ifs” and the “Whys” and “Whats” and “Whos” are always popping out in our brain, in our mind, whenever we come across a new technology. So, see beyond application of each research that is being presented. Don't just pigeonhole everything. Yeah, so be open minded. And, again, talk to as many people as you can.
24:56
Yvonne Chan
Get rid of those blinders, talk to as many people as you can. That's actually a very simple advice, but not many that, I think many people forget about that, you know? Just staying open minded and just seeing where this idea of this technology can be applied. Thank you, Amanda. Zoey?
25:15
Zoey Tong
I would say that there's a lot of lessons. But if I were to really crystallise down to the key ones, is, especially when you are in an early-stage start-up, and you are really rolling into the deep sea on a sampan
25:26
Yvonne Chan
Another analogy here. Sampan, yeah.
25:31
Zoey Tong
You know sampan, on this quest to find this exotic Island somewhere, right? And along the way, you will face issues like the sampans sinking, there's this unexpected hole, or these unexpected weather conditions. And all these are uncertain. Like nobody would expect that COVID would just hit the world suddenly, right? But what's certain is really the people you bring with you onboard the sampan. Get the right people on the sampan before you sail away. Even if it starts leaking somewhere in the middle of the deep sea, you have the confidence that the right capabilities can help to patch the hole. With the right team, I would say that almost all obstacles can be overcome. It's really having that attitude and that resilience and that greed, and also alongside the capabilities for you to resolve these problems on the go.
26:24
Yvonne Chan
So that was one piece of advice though, get the right team. What about the second one?
26:28
Zoey Tong
So, the second piece of advice ties back to the example from just now on the three doors. So cliche as it sounds right. Don't be afraid to try new things. I think there's really no failure or shame in that. Even if you hypothetically fail, it will still be a success because you would have learnt something from it. And that will propel you towards your next idea or milestone. So don't be afraid to like dream big and just try.
26:54
Yvonne Chan
Amanda, that was a very resounding yeah from you. I know teamwork, getting the right team, along with you for this journey is also very important to Nipo International, isn't it?
27:03
Amanda Khoo
Yeah, I think having the right team to the people who believe in you. I mean, of course you have the naysayers who say no, no, you shouldn't do this. But everybody comes with the same purpose and I think that's important. Everybody comes with a different skill set but we all share the same dream and that's important. And acknowledge everyone has a different skill set. You’ll get there, you will get there definitely.
27:29
Yvonne Chan
It seems like just having the right team with various capabilities will be able to help a company, a young company or a middle-aged company overcome any adversity to succeed. Thank you so much, Amanda and Zoey, for your very candid conversation with me today. You've both shared many key learnings which will certainly enable others in the industry to learn and grow. So one key insight from Amanda for me, was really not to waste a failure. To learn from the mistake and to also remember to celebrate your success, no matter how small the win may be, and to get rid of some of these blinders that we may have. And from Zoey, one key phrase that you said there really resonated with me it was, it is about the progress and not the perfection as long as we are better today than we were tomorrow. That's already a win right there. Thank you so much, ladies.
28:26
Amanda Khoo
Thank you very much.
28:27
Zoey Tong
Thank you very much.
28:30
Yvonne Chan
I'm Yvonne Chan, thank you so much for joining us. We will see you next time for another exciting and insightful episode.