DNA on BFM: A tale of three marketplaces

By Karamjit Singh May 5, 2016

Startups’ love of marketplaces continues with Ensogo, SushiVid
Pikom chairman urges tech leaders to have greater say in business

DNA on BFM: A tale of three marketplaces TODAY’S Tech Talk with DNA show on BFM Radio went exactly the way Freda Liu, the usual host of the segment, likes it to go, with the flow being more of a conversation than a monologue by yours truly.

Too bad she was not able to host today’s segment.

Instead, Jeff Sandhu and I enjoyed a free flow of conversation around the three stories I managed to speak about, one of which was an exclusive to BFM listeners because I could not finish the article in time to run it today.

Coincidentally, all three stories were about marketplaces!

While I think you will enjoy some of the highlights of my conversation with Ensogo Ltd chief executive officer Krzysztof Marszalek on why the company switched models from typical e-commerce to becoming a B2C marketplace enabler, our article on this tomorrow will shed more light.

But if you listen to the Ensogo conversation in this podcast, you will come across the three key reasons why Marszalek feels the South-East Asian e-commerce market is still years away from maturing.

But we started the show talking about why startup SushiVid feels these is a market opportunity to connect brands with YouTube influencers, and leverage on video to better tell their stories.

What I especially like about this startup is how the founder, Foong Yuh Wen, raised only RM200,000 (US$51,000) in a pre-seed round last year when she could have raised more. She and her small team are now focused on building market traction before raising what should be a large seed round.

From leveraging on video to tell a story, we spoke about how Garena Interactive’s C2C marketplace, Shopee, is now going to train its sellers, or those who want to sell things on its platform, via the ‘Shopee University.’

The bottom line here is clear. While sellers clearly have no loyalty to whichever platform they use, Shopee, whose eventual business model here will include offering them a payment service, wants to help sellers be more successful on its platform so that they sell more on Shopee and be more engaged with the platform.

I only just had time after these three stories to highlight a statement from the new Pikom chairman, Chin Chee Seong, urging IT management to be more assertive in the boardroom to help IT drive the delivery of business goals.

Chin urges them to act as advocates and have a greater say in the company. There is no excuse, as Gartner has found out.

To listen to the podcast, click here or the link below: