Seeding Sephora in Asia.
Snippets of what the scene is, and where it’s at, since when. (This time, something more than 140 / 280 characters, in not a tweet.)
Navigating Asian Startups 101, (for Girls..Like it was 2012.) Here are snippets of the Spikes Asia highlights where this cute google tote android was made in 2013.
CLICK (for pictures or reels of the event) & HERE (for a WSJ video about more business vision and side of the Industry).
1/ COS (metics) play.
LuxAsia bought a startup called Luxola of a friend of mine, more like co-workingspace acquaintance Cam Schu, and it is now called Sephora in Asia.
But back in 2012, it was a melange of table-fulls of products, a lot of pitching and no real store — something like what Glossier underwent in the UK, before they opened their store in London - but it helped us look through the myriad of offers from other countries, something that at that point was something you found, if you travelled and bought at the DutyFree shoppes at the airport or at destination country, not bought in-country.
Rocket launched an application that helps with services - and offered loads of girls coupons for haircuts, nail services, and pampering weekends -with their booking and discounting (a la groupon, but more location-sensitive) mobile app.
2/ GO Green, GO.
Good friend Stephanie Dickson & Paula Miquelis co-founders of the GreenIsTheNewBlack collective at Working Capitol, and curated and grew the foundations that helped that run.
Starting in 2017, they have marathon curations of tables of products, and local manufacturers and designers of green
Spy the first GreenIsTheNewBlack curation at their very successful launching at the Park Royal at the Upper Pickering Road, in 2017.
CLICK (for pictures or reels of the event) HERE.
3/ Fashion Harder, and Travel Back Home.
THE NetSet App. Yoox, but asia. So, i was part of the NetSetApp as an early adopter, (as you do), and did some techie adjustments on the fly. But mostly as an envoy to my elemental thing that called for more my fashionista (than my serious nerd-ic) sensibilities. Also, they are (it is) why i have tonnes of sunnies.
Roomorama. This one is quite a find. Founded by husband-and-wife team Federico (Insead alum) & Jia En Teo (ex-Citibanker) in their Chinatown HQ to their Telok Ayer posh red digs - it looks more like it belonged more to art-aficionado or early-shophouse-Batey-vibes advertising circles, rather than the post-hipster travel-photographer-mobile circles. The SMW (Social Media Week) fever of 2012, stumbled me upon event after event that was listed in the week-long international global social mobile. And fresh from my tech-social role the year before, i think this was something i had close to my interest circles -travel and being country-hopped for less accomodations. It is followed quite nearly the year after by the mr and mrs. smith website, with the Smith mobile booking app - of which i was a silversmith for five years. But that wasn’t as scaled as the AirBnB accom-app-travel-wars. Skyscanner also was situated in Singapore in Clifford Pier, in the same year. As well as Monocle, but this was testament to how, the 2010’s actually opened social-mobile up to a few challenges, as well as our pockets for serious credit-card travel damage.
4/ ART, Start, & Steady.
Art Stage & Affordable Art Fair, selling loads of contemporary art - one super posh, and the other, on the seriously super good & cheap! - curates it at Marina area after F1 season, in December so the outdoor haunts are not too warm. Good for artists, and people like me, who have white walls when they land in a country they move as expats in or start work in, and are always on the lookout for good finds, every year.
The Artling - with founder Tals Gajardo and Pierre Focault. At one of the events, Kim Tay who worked there was my docent on the featured artworks, and found that it was (in 2016) art auction but pivoting to several things luxe as well. Interactive docent-users for the day explain art pieces on display at their once-a-month invite-only’s at Telok Ayer - at the old rooftop office. They since launched a Luxe app -that serves as their online catalogue for perusing as well as creating user exchanges, that facilitate brokering by interested groups/ avid art fan and fashion buyers.
5/ Girl, Working Spaces.
The Hub, very successfully leads the round-up to the Workspace hops in Singapore — founded and ran by Grace Sai, from 2012 to around 2018 (where branding and logo turned to more locations, as well as from the Red to a Blue logo).
Working Capitol, since 2016 founded by Saranta Gattie, and is a real event-host haunt of those who cared for Climate Change and innovating towards that 2030 end.
Straits Clan, who honours scholars/ art fund winners like Elyn Wong’s design atelier, Stolen - who collected accolades since her Art Director days in Ogilvy & Mather in Singapore.
GorillaSpace, a company Co-Founded by Ginny Eckblad with her husband, also worked out of Working Capitol, and actively curates spaces for women, kids, and has a personal eye for matching startup needs to available spaces.
And the radical Margaret Manning’s Adelphi Digital Consulting Group - in a brick red building in a huge rooftop space two floors above my Yoga studio space, where i downward dog on very stressful days. They do mostly rapid prototyping and recently outfitted a buy-in to the Reading Room in 2015 to run the Adelphi at Tanjong Pagar into around 2018.
Just off the top of my head, these are the featured girl startup fun bits of 2014-onwards, post-Spain TC/Disrupt, advocate & envoy for StartupStay in Asia, GirlsInTech, and the huge post-macbook-pro trauma. (No biggie btw).
And as it is super-solstice summer soon, (and boy we can feel it as we step outside in the 30sCº heat) and I am setting off to traveling again soon. See you when i see you in the area, or airport, or the starbucks nearby trying to fiddle with local wifi. Maybe we can chat, and exchange name-cards, or (as i run out of those real quick), i’ll just keep you in mind.
Have a good summer! Ciao.
