The New Builders: VLT Labs x Supahands.
We’ve come a long way from having nothing to building 40 startups and helping big companies innovate. Here’s a back story and a little touch on the processes that we’ve gone through to build and helped launched Supahands.
Supahands was recently invested by 500 startups and Axiata digital funds.
‘Here’s what I am thinking’ said Mark Koh the CEO and Co-Founder of Supahands.com a virtual outsourcing startup as he presented his idea on a piece of paper that he and Susian (Head of Operations,CoFounder)had drawn weeks before meeting VLT Labs.
Supahands: From Paper to Funded
Labs was a young company back then with only 3 head count and in a hunt for our first equity. Tim Ferris’s ‘4 HOUR A WEEK’ book was all the rage back then, many were approaching us about ideas that are somehow related to the book. But we were treading careful for our first few risk in trading services with equity. We only had a couple of months work of runway and we wanted to make it count.
Enter Supahands. Two dynamic, co-founders that are already running a small outsourcing setup came to us and presented the idea of creating a platform when you can submit your tasks in order get some extra hands, so that you can ‘spend your time with what matters to you’.
We loved it! The idea was rather novel in Asia and the possibility was endless. We took the leap, made a valuation, agreed on a size and we came in as technological and design partners to build what would be an adventure for a new venture builder.
It’s not just outsourcing, but it’s buying time for the things you love doing most.
It’s such an exciting idea that we knew that even branding would play a big part inmaking Supahands memorable and relatable, rather than being seen as just another outsourcing company.
We felt that it needed more then just good copywriting to convey the service offering across to the potential users. It needs an emotional attachment, a feeling of being rescued from the jaws of menial,repetitive tasks and knowing that Supahands are the go-to-guys that you would trust in delegating your personal and business life over.
With that in mind, we thought to ourselves that the SupaAgents that we have are really Supaheroes. What is Supahands isa family of Supaheroes? That would definitely represent the unsung SupaAgents that are enjoying doing what you don’t.That family needs a face, So we developed them. It was exciting!
Now who says that a startup shouldn’t invest too much time in their branding efforts? We invested a portion of time to be able to visually seperate Supahands with the rest of the rat race by a mile and it worked!
Being the technological & design ‘co-founders’
Our idea to be partners, is to get into a Win-Win situation and in theory would increase the odds of success.
We positioned ourselves as a co-founder of your startup and will trade service for equity ( we also trade service for cash, I mean we’ve got families to feed). Our idea to be partners, is to get into a Win-Win situation and in theory that would increase the odds of success. Both parties will have skin in the game and will have a healthy competitive realtionship in driving the business forward.
In the intial stage VLT Labs will use our resources to build the product/service and as the business grows we help to hire Key team players in design and development that can help the business grow without us having to be active forever.What this means is that the initial work that VLT Labs has worked on needs to be transferable to the Supahands team and that is something that we work hard at. Making sure that work done is transferable to our partners team and that they can run it themselves with minimum friction.
A product needs to be loved; keep the founder sane.
We know that being a founder is a tough and lonely job. Being in a Win-Win situation we are also prone to a Lose-Lose outcome, we like to keep our Founders sane and sharp :). So we plug in our Product Managers to help with prioritising and helping the founders to plan the next steps, As we move the gear towards getting the startups we work with towards self sustainability.
At the same time the founders are coached on how to communicate with developers and designers, how to prioritise features and all the things that a new tech founder will not know and often overlook until it’s too late.
It’s not the end, it’s a start.
This no where close to the end of the race or a million/billion/trillion dollar success story. It’s more of a sharing story and a piece of history that I am sharing based on the VLT Labs journey in building a startup in the ASEAN market.
It’s been a hard fought journey, just so that we get onto the mark on the startingline. There is a lot more work that needs to be done and more improvement in all aspect, but it’s been a journey that I am excited to be a part of.
