Localising a Startup Concept: Personal Concierge in Singapore/SEA
This is the story of how we localised the personal text assistant startup concept to fit our target users, busy Singapore/South East Asian customers.
This is the story of nihao concierge.
Looking at Magic, a wildly popular startup, we knew that there was a lot of space for such a simple yet helpful business in our region. The idea was already there. What we had to do was just to adapt the process of using the service, and make it unique and better suited to our region.
Choice of Messaging Tool
To begin, we looked at various messaging apps that would be ideal for our user base and suitable for our service.
In the South East Asian region, there are a few highly used mobile messaging apps. Just to name a few, WhatsApp, LINE are WeChat are all popular. However, we’ve been noticing an upward trend of the number of users moving to Telegram, a free, simple, clean, secure and user-friendly app.
This is great because Telegram doesn’t have the clutter that exists in WhatsApp, LINE and WeChat. When users talk to our chat butlers, we want to make sure that there’s very little distraction and that the users will not unknowingly forget about us. We also want to be there while users are using the service, but hidden from sight when they aren’t.
How about SMS you say?
Well, we’ve looked at some numbers and read some research and the conclusion we’ve come to is: SMS is being/has been overtaken by the slew of internet-based messaging apps. Plus, the costs of using SMS are clearly more than the costs of adopting an internet-based messaging app. This saves money for both the user and our startup.
This is why we settled on Telegram. A quaint and simple little app that will differentiate us from the rest who insist on fighting for attention with everyone. You have to figure out the most effective way to reach out to your users, and that means that time needs to be spent on small but very important details such as these.
The well trodden path isn’t always the best for you.
Types of Services Offered
By targeting developed South East Asian cities, Singapore, Kuala Lumpur and further north, Hong Kong, another important factor we have to take into consideration is the services we offer.
When we cast such a wide net and say “get whatever you want on demand with no hassle”, we need to consider the most common requests and tasks and develop fast and efficient ways to handle them.
Hence, we specialise in delivery, shopping, food and even homework services. This may not be relevant in your area, but there is a rather high demand for these services in South East Asia. Plus, people in South East Asia lead busy lives, so instead of requests for eating recommendations or travel suggestions, these requests are more popular and should be prominently publicised. Localise your startup, not your users.
If your users want service X, don’t give them service Y instead.
Choice of Language
Very often, we find that it’s much easier to connect with people who use the same language as ourselves. South East Asia is a melting pot of very diverse cultures and races so our service has to adapt to those language varieties when we assist users.
For instance, in Singapore, we can respond in standard English, Mandarin (Chinese) and Singlish (Singapore-English). This gives us the flexibility to attend to different types of users who may feel more at ease with a different type of written text. This gives us an instant connection with our users and is an much better way to communicate with our users.
Say it like they do.
Closing Thoughts
Yes, we are new, but these are just some of our thoughts about localising a startup concept in another region from our perspectives. Clearly this piece of writing is just scratching the surface in terms of what you can do to appeal to your users, but this is what we’ve learnt so far, and we hope you gain something from this too.
We are nihao concierge and thank you for reading our piece about localising a startup concept.
References
SMS messaging takes a serious tumble as mobile data grows in popularity. (2014, March 14). Retrieved April 7, 2015.
Chat apps now more popular than SMS worldwide. (2013, April 29). Retrieved April 7, 2015.
Free Chat App Messaging Has Officially Overtaken Costly SMS In Popularity. (2013, April 29). Retrieved April 7, 2015.
