Category: Singapore

Finally met up with Josh

~ michael_msft ~ 1 Comment

I didn’t get to attend the TIA conference but was able to catch up with lots of folks who were in town and went to a nice event by Sequoia.

Say what you will about our current times but Singapore is absolutely hopping right now and is the center of the startup universe for SEA region and India. Love it. So fortunate to be here at this time.

I have many Twitter friends that I sometimes get to meet and Josh would be one of those. We finally got to hang out and chat a bit.

As a writer, he of course decided to spring this on the Internet after we chatted.

Good stuff. As I always tell people – OTT in emerging markets is really just kicking off and has a long ways to go. I wouldn’t profess to know where it all might land, but it’s a crazy hot space regardless.

One comment – that last little quote by iFlix – we all know 1 million is just registered users. Paying subs will be some marginal single digit percentage point of that total number. As I always say – release real stats or none at all.

Good chatting with you Josh – I guess we will keep up the Twitter DM dialogue going till we meet again.

My day with Ratan Tata

~ michael_msft ~ Leave a comment

I’ll start with this write up from TIA.

A day with Ratan Tata//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js

Yesterday, Jungle Ventures, hosted a morning with Ratan Tata and the founders of their portfolio companies – then later in the day an event with their LP’s.

I was allowed to tag along and spend some time hanging with the crew.

This is the second time in my life I have met him but this time I was offered a whole day and a chance to speak with him directly for a bit while we had lunch.

First off, I am just stunned by how humble he was and extremely gracious with his time and thoughts.

The article highlighted his frequent response of “I don’t know”, but it was usually his response to an unclear or unconcise question. Or a question he just didn’t have an answer to.

That being said he always had advice or thoughts but just did not always give a specific answer. He was more into the theory or lesson to be learned in discovering your own answer and any advice he could offer to enhance your discovery.

I could go on and on with what I learned and the stories around Nano, Land Rover, Jaguar, and just running a huge org were priceless.

I was further stunned to catch him in the lobby, alone, carrying his hotel reciept after checking himself out. 

Just a man of the people. Which is sometimes hard to grasp given his stature.

It further cements his advice about ethics, empathy and solving real problems of the world.

I am still in awe.

Google copied my playbook ;)

~ michael_msft ~ Leave a comment

It’s funny how much a lead Yahoo threw away. First there is the global rise of messaging as a platform – remember Yahoo messenger?

Then there is the need to chase the emerging markets opportunity but rather than do it from Silicon Valley – you place the problem with people from the market.

Now google goes and acquires Pie.co to help them with emerging markets software talent. Great move.

Amazes me at times to see how bad Yahoo is blowing it and how they had so many of the pieces needed to compete.

Oh well…

Thoughts on OTT

~ michael_msft ~ 6 Comments

Update to the post::

I said as much in my list below – get ready for the VPN to stop working when it comes to gaming Netflix content libraries.

First, let me start off with a shameless plug for a podcast I was a guest of:

Now that we got that out of the way we can continue on. Also – my shameless plus is so we make this AA’s #1 podcast to ensure I get invited back. 😉

Let me disclose that I work at hooq.tv and used to work at spuul.com . I do have some sense of this world I am talking about. I don’t have a crystal ball and I also think that in the emerging markets it will take years to declare a winner. Years I say!

That being said I think it is important to note some things for the pedestrians:

    – In many markets, say Taxis or car booking services, I can agree with the winner take all or winner take most, especially in the USA or China. FYI Om covered this topic well here :: http://www.newyorker.com/tech/elements/in-silicon-valley-now-its-almost-always-winner-takes-all. However in large regional area or emerging markets I am not sure if it is true and it also has to be that pricing almost equalizes. In the case of this specific subject if we are talking about Netflix dominating in India I struggle to see how a company that charges 3x its emerging markets brethren can own the market. Maybe it will own the high end but how would it own the market that does not pay that much for entertainment?

    – Let no one kid you. None of these players are currently fighting over a paid customer base – we are all fighting to convert a pirate over to a paying subscriber. That will take years and there are plenty of pirates to share at this moment.

    – Local content is a big deal and no one player owns it all nor can sell it all to one OTT player. Also many of the local content players are building or have built their own OTT services.

    – There can never be just one service for all. Take me for example. I share my mom’s Netflix account but I buy my own HBO account. I value HBO way more than Netflix and nothing they did last week changed that equation for me.

    – Payment models in the emerging markets are hard. For Netflix it very well could be that the only customer they care about has a credit card. That still lives 100’s of millions of customers for companies like HOOQ who think there are others way to take money from users.

    – Not only are payment models hard but so are subscription types. Is a monthly recurring subscription going to work in the emerging markets? For some folks it might. For others maybe weekly subscriptions is better? Maybe a subscription tied to a data balance makes more sense. No one knows yet.

    – Content rights are super hard. I love seeing all the people baffled as to why they log into Netflix Singapore and it doesn’t look like the USA catalog. Netflix didn’t buy all the rights for Singapore because they know it is a small market. It may not be worth it and chances are some of it is not available. Also, Netflix being a capitalist, sold some of their shows to services in Singapore already so they can’t just take it back. Over time as they grow they will fix this but again Netflix could never own everything you want to see.

    – As OTT takes off some of the big players will try to work around Netflix and other services to go direct. One good read on this :: http://bgr.com/2015/11/05/netflix-streaming-time-warner/

    – The all powerful VPN. Currently lots of folks are signing up for Netflix Singapore and then using a VPN or anonymous IP to get the USA catalog. All good but keep in mind they way content rights work. They are bought and sold for a region – they are not tied to what credit card you use. Lots of folks talk about Apple TV or iTunes as the model where I can use my use a credit card to buy a show. And I can watch it in Singapore but note I am paying US prices so the content guys don’t care. Apple is not a subscription service and notice it they planned on doing this with TV and backed down. Netflix is getting away with murder right now. Pay Singapore prices but watch a USA catalog. At some point the content owners may ask Netflix to enforce geo specific rule or to simply not support VPN usage. Most content owners ask companies like HOOQ to try to block VPN’s or similar tools. As global content streaming takes off, I expect this to be an ongoing discussion.

    – To summarize I would like to say this is going to take time to all play out. As I like to remind my team regularly – it’s a marathon – not a sprint.

I’ll add to this is if I think I missed something.

Grinding it out

~ michael_msft ~ Leave a comment

Day to day product stuff can be a real grind. Sweating out the details to eak some performance out by a mere fraction of a second, dealing with a partner who can’t code their way out of wet paper bag and pouring over printed contracts trying to make sure we don’t get screwed. You know, the fun stuff that no one ever sees but that make a world of a difference.

Given all that work this is one of those weeks that HOOQ can bask in the glory a bit…

Although the local trade rags don’t talk about us much, I think we raised too much money or something, the FT, my fav paper, mentioned us :: http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/fb11e7b6-7df4-11e5-98fb-5a6d4728f74e.html

There is much to talk about the OTT wars. I am working on building my second one and as I always tell people it is a marathon, not a sprint. User signups for example don’t mean much when it comes to “revenue”, but all that being said – there are a few of us out to get the prize. One could even argue what the prize is but for me it is to build a real revenue business in streaming content to people in the emerging markets. It’s a tough problem.

I will speaking about it here :: http://www.ap.idc.asia/events/view/agenda/?event_id=612&loc_id=1151

I always mention how bizdev is a tricky beast for a startup – I have written about that before :: http://www.nokpis.com/2014/07/10/fear-bizdev/

Even with HOOQ I have been wary of BD due to the work it creates. For the last few months we have been grinding on this :: http://www.snapdeal.com/product/google-chromecast-hdmi-streaming-media/1709999463?offer_id=17&aff_id=14723&utm_source=aff_prog&utm_campaign=afts

How do you like them Apples?

BizDev is tough – be wary.

That being said we worked hard on shipping chromecast. It has been well received by our users.

Today we added one more thing – native chrome browser support for HTML 5 video. For the nerds – this is hard stuff that most common users can’t appreciate. Having to do secure video at scale with HTML 5 isn’t easy. We will fix the other browsers as soon as we can.

#productLife

More thoughts on transpo!

~ michael_msft ~ Leave a comment

What we all really want is this right?

http://www.buzzfeed.com/mathonan/googles-cute-cars-and-the-ugly-end-of-driving#.lc7Vy8RkM

Open an app, summon a car, go to my spot, get out and get billed. No driver in the car so we can carry on a normal family or private conversation. I don’t have to argue about the route, worry about traffic or smell a driver’s nasty foot odor. Yes – that happened the other day on Uber X. Won the lottery of getting a fancy weekend Uber X car but paid for it with a punishing smell of rotting old man feet.

Robotic fleet of cars is the answer to a lot of what ails a city. Bring it.

Lit up my stats the other day with this tweet – even garnered a few retweets from the pros.

But damn if I didn’t speak to soon.

Usually when I am in an Uber or Grab I quiz the drivers. I like to hear their stories, how they use the system and what they are getting paid. Like the last time I was in LA the driver picked me up in an Uber X and then based on when he thought he would drop me was logging into his Lyft app to hopefully bag a ride near my drop off point. Love how this economic model influences behaviours.

I noticed about a week ago I couldn’t get an Uber X in the morning – right around 6:50 is when I order one. But funny thing is I noticed some Grab cars lurking around me. So today there were no Uber X cars but yet my first pull on the Grab app netted me a ride on GrabCar. Lo and behold, yeah I remember every driver, I noticed a car that has picked me up before and the driver with his new blonde hair. Of course I dig in to learn that Uber has rules about appearance and on top of that he said the new 60 hour – 100 ride system is paying less than Grab unless you hit the kickers. So his calculated per hour rate is now down and he isn’t logging into Uber X anymore, thus he was available for a GrabCar ride. Hence I can get a Grab now but not an Uber.

Not sure this move is working out too well for Uber since outside of the city central I see less cars now but I will add when I see them I get one. Unlike the Grab system, where they inflate the cars around you and you don’t always get one.

Also many of the Uber X drivers I know on using the cars rented via the Uber system – wonder how this messes with that system?

Where will this end? My guess is both companies are bleeding money and if so this is a funding game to some extent. Good times.

Grab’s problem versus Uber

~ michael_msft ~ 11 Comments

I get in arguments constantly that I am an Uber lover and a Grab hater but most people won’t stop long enough to listen to my stance on it. I will say that after meeting an hearing Sacca I am even a bigger fan but I guess I was just super impressed with Sacca.

First off let me add that as Grab is a local I am constantly baffled and why they are not more local? They took forever to add credit cards, they have no loyalty program (huge mistake), and in places like Singapore their mapping and lack of using zip codes is comical.

On top of all of this the apps just suck – let me get detailed here:

– I will book a taxi. It is on the way. The app will crash. It re opens and it goes back to book a taxi mode. I have one on the way. Of course now I can’t contact the taxi because it shows I don’t have a taxi.

– This happened to me a number of times in Bangkok and since I couldn’t contact the taxi and they couldn’t find me they would cancel on me. I wouldn’t know this since the app thinks I don’t have a booking anyway.

– Other times I would re book only to find I would have two taxis coming. How would a system let me book two taxis? On top of this customer service would call me to inquire why I booked two cabs.

– Other issues like the timing mechanisms are totally broken and the app is just overly complicated.

However let me get to what I think is the core crux of why I don’t like Grab. It fails on the instant gratification scale that Uber absolutely nails. For example this is what I saw this morning when trying to get a GrabCar:

Untitled//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js

To myself or my wife this would make it look like we have a chance of getting a car.

Wait for it – this is what almost always happens though:

Untitled//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js

And happens and happens and almost always happens.

Why doesn’t it retry till I get a car?

Why does it show me there are cars around me but yet none accept the fare?

This is the part of Grab that lulls me into thinking it is just a booking app – like all other booking apps. Whereas Uber is an Instant Transportation Service living within my phone. If there are no cars available then it shows me that there are no cars. And practically every time it shows cars are available I am able to book one. Otherwise it shows no cars available. Or if really busy you see surge pricing.

I will take a surge price over hitting retry on Grab 100 times. Why? Instant gratification. I know I can book a car. With Grab. It is spray and pray.

There are those saying that Grab will just keep raising enough money to win. I think winning might be beating other regional players – Rocket already packed their bags. However Uber will win the ultimate battle due to the difference in how the core of their service works.

Grab could fix this but they don’t seem to be since the apps are as bad a they have ever been.

Getting by in Singapore w/o a car or motorcycle

~ michael_msft ~ Leave a comment

Singapore has awesome public transit – no question, but sometimes I just have to get somewhere in a hurry or work is paying and I need a cab.

I used to always use comfort SMS booking – in fact it is still the most convenient way to book a cab. sms postal code. Done. Kills all apps hands down.

Then Uber comes. I tried Uber black a few times and it’s awesome but a waste of money. I tried the other cab services and mostly they all suck but honestly – they are just cab aggregation apps that aggregate the same shitty cabs that like to tell me they don’t have change, their machine is down or they grumble about where I am going. So yes – there is an app for that. If what you want is cabs. I don’t.

About the only product as of late that works for me is UberX. It is cheaper than cabs and seems to be more readily available apart from peak times – which is a still a big Singapore issue. Now some will say – check out GrabCar – the non-taxi product from GrabTaxi.

Let me tell you how that went:

Order GrabCar
Confirmed
Called
Argued with driver about where I actually was
Waited
App crashed
App restarts showing I have no booking
Called driver – still coming but thinks I am somewhere else but since no app I can’t confirm where he is going
Waited
Text driver – no response
Call driver – no answer
Call driver – no answer
Call driver – driver hangs up

I sms driver to say go to hell

GrabTaxi has the worst apps ever. I am still baffled where all the millions go. Durians I guess.

Back to UberX