Interacting with other startup founders allowed us to learn from others who are on the same journey, says Chen Bin Chan of JFDI Discover Startup Onbump.
1. Tell us about your startup and team – who are you, and what are you aiming to do?
OnBump consists of 5 members; Tan Kean Seng (Data Scientist), Chan Chen Bin (Backend Engineer), Dexmond Choong (Android Developer), Weijie Tham (UX Designer) and Emily Yim (Administrator). Our mission is to solve a problem of punctuality in Malaysian culture by developing a mobile application to co-ordinate people’s arrival times using a Smart Dynamically Self-Refined Alarm.
2. First off, how did you hear about JFDI Discover?
We were searching for startup incubators in Singapore and JFDI came up in our research. Initially we intended on applying for JFDI Accelerate, but learned that the application deadline for 2015B had passed. Through email interaction with JFDI, we were then introduced to JFDI Discover and felt it was more appropriate for our status as an early stage startup.
3. Why did you start this business? How has this impacted your life?
Within our group of friends, we try to organise a social event almost every weekend. However, there is almost always someone who shows up late. Based on our experience, lack of punctuality is a common habitual problem amongst Malaysians and results in a lot of unproductive time. We decided to try and make a change and that led to our idea – OnBump.
All of our founders currently hold full time jobs, meaning our startup work mainly takes places on weeknights and weekends. This has had a huge impact on our lives as we have less leisure time, however we feel our efforts will pay off in encouraging better habits within our society
4. What were some of the challenges you faced before joining JFDI Discover?
Aside from the technical aspects of developing our product, we had no experience nor guidance on which direction we should be heading towards, and had no idea where to look for funding.
5. How did JFDI Discover help your startup?
JFDI Discover provides a platform to facilitate discussions between startups. As stated in the rules of Lean Startup, we were able to validate our idea through founder’s check in before we proceeded to build our first prototype. Aside from that, mentor’s check-in helped us in reviewing the work we had done in the past week. Suggestions from the mentors pointed out exactly what we had missed out and what we should explore further, especially to understand the needs of our potential customers.
6. What was your favorite and least favorite aspect of JFDI Discover?
Our favourite part of JFDI Discover was the clear and precise task tha was outlined to us each week. The tasks presented guided us towards learning to build a successful startup. We also valued the interactions we were able to have with the other startup founders in the program as it allowed us to learn from others who are on the same journey.
However, we disliked that all the meetings such as Mentors Check-in and Welcoming Video Calls were conducted on weekdays and during normal working hours. This caused some trouble for us to attend the video call as all of our founders are currently employed full-time.
7. What is the one lesson you took away from JFDI Discover that you think other founders should know too?
We learned that it is crucial to know what your potential customers think and it is best to interview them face-to-face. Face-to-face interviews allow us to see their facial expressions and hear their tone of voice, which is important when clarifying misunderstandings on the spot.
8. Where is your team planning to go from here?
We have learned a lot from JFDI Discover, particularly in building our product and involving customers in the process. In the near future we intend on continuing to develop our product and seeking validation from customers in the process to ensure there is always a market for our product.
After that we will seek investors and demonstrate our product’s traction and the market’s interest in the product. We are also looking forward to expanding to other countries to suit their culture’s needs. Aside from that, we believe we have a whole lot more room for expansion in the trending Internet of Things (IoT).
9. Which resources do you look to for startup related advice? Have you read any books on startups.
Most of the startup related advice we consume comes from internet resources such as articles, social media etc. Entreprenuer is one of the best subscriptions that we have found because it provides plenty of advice and motivation for first time entrepreneurs – such as how to effectively improve productivity and highlighting the areas we need to be extra careful with.
We also enjoyed a book titled “Hooked – How to Build Habit-Forming Products” by Nir Eyal, illustrating how to build a successful product which people can’t put down. We highly recommend this book to every startup founder.
Thinking of starting your own business? JFDI Discover will help you find out if you really want to be an entrepreneur. It will reveal if your team is aligned to deliver results. And it will show you how to solve a real problem for customers who are willing to pay thus moving closer to a “problem-solution fit”.
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Cui-Lyn Huang is on the Editorial team for JFDI Asia. Currently pursuing a combined major in Computer Science & Journalism at Northeastern University in Boston, and after growing up on the little red dot. She loves to write, she loves to eat, and loves to write about eating.