Hi Gabriel, so who is IWD?

Nicolas Martin and I founded IWD in 2000. Originally we were a web agency but we specialized in functional websites. At the time it was not common so it made us different: think Intranet, web tools or useful sites in general.

Our first clients were for instance travel agencies offering online booking sites, or retailers who wanted to build their packaging databases.

In 2002 Shiseido approached us to build their planograms. For those who don’t know 🙄, these are visual representations of a store’s products on display. The timing was perfect because at that time we wanted to become a software vendor, not just an agency. So we offered to build it for free and they would buy licences instead.

They agreed and this is how we got started in our current positioning. It took us 2 years before the business really took off, when we signed Estee Lauder. One of the reason we have been successful is that our competitors sold their software on CD -we’ve always been a Saas company- and our UX was just simple and modern.

Where are you today?

IWD’s strength really is that we combine an expertise in retail and in software. Our mission is to help customers deploy their brand and their image in the point of sale and be more efficient.

We have more than 300 brands in our portfolio, for instance Timberland, The North Face, Uniqlo, Chanel, Dior, Havaianas, etc.

We are about 80 people, with the biggest presence in Paris where most of our developers are. We also have offices in Los Angeles, New-York and recently in Singapore. In terms of business, it is very important for us to be present in these locations because all of our clients are big international brands.

In each office we have one developer, and mainly account managers and business developers. 80% of our work is software edition and the remaining 20% support on our products.

Why Singapore?

We decided to set-up a new office here in Singapore about 3 years ago to accompany our customers. Actually Charles & Keith told us they would like us to be based in Singapore. We took a chance and it proved successful!

I came here personally to kick it off. My job was simply to deliver on the first projects, recruit the right team and grow our pipeline to have sufficient runway to operate smoothly.

Our market is very dynamic, we’re on a great trajectory and we’re hiring. I will go back in France in July and we’ve hired Ghislain Moret, the former Country Manager of Devialet, to oversee our APAC operations. He’s a great fit because has a unique combination of luxury, retail, tech and innovation.

What’s different in the Asian market?

This market is fascinating. I learned a lot in my time here. You can’t really understand what’s going on in Asia without being based here.

First, the cost of manpower is a critical factor. Since it is cheap, software vendors have a hard time because many companies prefer to hire 5 people to do something instead of buying a software to automate it. For us it means we must focus on selling them the parts that they really can’t do internally.

You also need to think differently about the Asian customers themselves vs. the customers travelling in Asia. For example, Korea is a very interesting market. The Travel Retail industry is growing rapidly and the Seoul airport is the biggest in the world. About $22Mds are being spent there every year. This is huge: the 2nd biggest is the Emirates one but it’s only about $12Mds. But the thing is that a very large part of these $22Mds are actually Chinese people buying in Korea and reselling elsewhere. So you need to understand the dynamics!

Lastly, Asia is very, very diverse. We focus on high-end markets in Asia, like Japan, Korea, Hong-Kong or Australia. But these countries are as different as continents. So yes, the business opportunity in Asia is real but it is really complicated.

What’s the next step for IWD?

We raised funds recently, for the first time. Originally we grew up slowly but nicely. We only raised love money in the beginning and last year we raised funds with Ardian. We have known them for 5 or 6 years and they never pushed us -which we liked! We have a great relationship with them.

Our goal is to scale-up and we needed to have the means of our ambitions. So far it’s looking great. Having such an investor forces us as entrepreneurs to really go above and beyond expectations, to be very focused and rigorous. They provide a very strong support and we can now envision things we never thought of, like growing with acquisitions.

For more info: www.iwd.io

Southeast Asia can be a wealth of opportunities for Startups -but it’s no easy market. This week we sat down with Sebastien de Peretti, Founder of Jumpster, a company that helps French Startups expand there.

Hi Sebastien, how did you arrive in Singapore?

We arrived in Asia by choice, my wife and I simply decided to move here. We spent some time looking at different places but Singapore just looked like the best compromise between professional opportunities and quality of life. We didn’t really have any particular connections there but it seemed like the perfect choice.

Back in France I held various general management positions in small MNCs, and I started working in a similar role in Singapore. But I was really trying to find my sweet spot, where I could bring most value. This is how I realized I could help startups expand here in Singapore and in the Region and this is how I decided to found Jumpster.

What is Jumpster?

It’s very simple. We basically work with startups who want to expand in Southeast Asia. There’s two ways we do this:

• As a first step we do business development for them.
• Ultimately we want to invest with them. We build joint ventures with them to help them accelerate

We differentiate on two things:

• We build long-term relationships with our Customers. Many companies here say they help with business development but they basically work on a couple of weeks assignments. We think 3 to 6 month, because that’s what it really takes to do it.
• Second, we focus on B2B tech startups in several areas: Internet Of Things, Big data and Artificial Intelligence and Cybersecurity.

We see good commercial traction since our beginning so it shows we deliver value.

How did you create it?

We are three associates: Sylvain Lejeune, Jean-Luc Bernard and myself. Sylvain is VP Sales of WatchGuard and he has been in Asia for 20 years. He has an extensive network in cybersecurity. Jean-Luc is an entrepreneur in the tech industry for more than 30 years, he has seen the evolution in the past decades and brings a huge knowledge as well.

When I decided to create Jumpster I started by speaking to a lot of people. I deeply believe that an idea can only be good if you share it. Sometimes founders are reluctant to do it to protect their ideas, but it’s just not how I work. So I talked to many people and it helped me structure my thoughts, strengthen the value proposition and more generally I got extremely valuable feedback. Most importantly this is how I met my co-founders.

We share strong values and this is what enabled us to find employees, partners, customers and extended resources. These resources are critical for every startup. They are people who believe in our idea and business and want to help us in the early stages.

Singapore is a great place to start a business. When I moved here I had no idea I was going to do this. By talking to a lot of people i realized I could bring value, and the market here is very fast and fluid. This is how I started.

I believe Singapore will become an important technology hub. It is still very small compared to Europe or the US , but it is reaching the critical mass that’s required to grow.

Why do you focus on a few verticals?

Well first we all come from this background so it is our expertise.

But most importantly these industries are a huge opportunity in the region because they aren’t so much the focus here. There are a lot of B2C startups that focus on retail, on consumer trends, on marketing or advertising technologies. This is an opportunity for us to differentiate and bring our expertise in an underserved market like Financial Services, Mission-critical infrastructure (energy, water and telecoms), transportation and logistics and manufacturing.

We focus on really high-tech B2B startups, between A and B series, who want to expand in Southeast Asia.

What is the next step for Jumpster?

We are still at the beginning. We started beginning of this year and we’re already working with several clients. This is great, and it’s the first phase of our development.

Obviously we’re full speed looking for new customers and this will keep us busy for the coming months.

The next phase for us, probably end of this year or beginning of next, will be co-investment. We’re not in a hurry because we really want to have mutual trust between us and our Customers before we create a Joint Venture. We want to ensure we both believe we’re the best partners, that we agree on the go-to-market and sales strategy and most importantly that we can execute on this strategy.

We have a very collaborative approach, meaning that the more successful startups we have in Southeast Asia the more opportunity we will have. So we are very inclusive and try to help startups even if they don’t work with us in the end. The success of some will bring success for others!

To know more you can visit www.jumpster.sg or contact us at contact@jumpster.sg

After the blockchain last week, today we’re diving in the Insurtech industry. Matthias de Ferrières, founder and CEO of the Stark group tell sus how he started his companies and what it means for him to be an entrepreneur.

Matthias, tell us more about yourself?

I founded my first company when I was 16. It was a community of Lego fans and we were organizing events on weekends. It was really fun and I learned a lot! But I sold it after a year to go back to my studies.

After that I worked for Arthur Andersen for about a year and then I wanted to learn english so I decided to move to Australia. I did several jobs there and I finally got a lawyer degree.

I then moved to Singapore to work for Axa. I started as a intern, and I ended-up as their CMO when I left.

What are you doing now?

So in 2013, digital was starting to boom and we had a product to acquire customers online. I decided to take it and built a company around it, this is how Stark Group started. Today the group has 3 businesses:

• Insurance republic

The company is mandated by banks or insurers to design their products, from the customer journey to the pricing, etc.). Most insurers today are focused on compliance, legal and risk, not really the product design itself sor we’re filling this gap.

• MotorDBS

In partnerships with DBS we’ve built the first price comparison engine for motor insurance

• MyInsurer

This one works extremely well and takes most of my focus at the moment.
It is a marketing platform for insurance intermediaries.

What does it mean for you to be an entrepreneur?

The challenge is that the insurance business is not interesting or sexy for anybody. To me this is a great opportunity as an entrepreneur.

I’m convinced that you need experience anyways, whatever the business you’re in. Entrepreneurship is really about knowing your industry inside out and understanding its needs and risks. Today my company works because I spent 15 years working like crazy in a company in this domain. You need 3 things:

• Know the industry
• Understand and evaluate the gaps
• Know how to potentially fill them.

By the way, it is probably the next challenge of the entrepreneurs ecosystem in Singapore. The whole environment here is still young. It’s dynamic but it lacks experience and structure.

What are you objectives in the coming months?

Today I’m very focused on MyInsurer.  I have always bootstrapped my businesses and Stark Group has invested SGD400K in MyInsurer, but now is the time for us to raise more funds and hire different types of profiles.

I am very pragmatic: I know I am very good at knowing which products to build and how to sell them, but I need the right profiles to help use on other aspects. Our plan is to raise funds in September to be ready to deploy later in the year.