A big welcome to the eight start-up teams set to run the marathon of our bootcamp, which kicks off on 21 February!
Each team has already won a prize: an immediate S$25,000 investment. Based on last year’s results, each also has a better-than-60% chance of winning S$600,000 or more at our next Demo Day, when the team gets six minutes on stage to impress an audience of active early-stage investors.
- AskAbt, from India, have a platform to manage real-time crowdsourced queries (C–C)
- Collabspot, from France and Philippines, have a novel approach to Customer Relationship Management (B–B)
- DayTripR, from Singapore and New Zealand, have an online data collection utility (B–B)
- DocTree, from Singapore and India, have software for medical practice management (B–B–C)
- Duable Chinese (讀able), from the USA, make Chinese language learning fun and effective (B–C)
- Fashfix, from Singapore and Malaysia, helps fashionistas turn their wardrobes into blog shops (C–C)
- My Fitness Wallet, from Singapore, are working on health and wellness (B–C)
- Referoll, from Singapore and Vietnam, have a business that recruits participants for research studies (B–B–C)
One or two additional teams may slip in just before the bootcamp begins. Between now and Demo Day, every one of them must prove that its baby business can jump three hurdles: it must focus on a real-world problem that is worth solving, it must show that its solution fits that problem, and finally it must prove that the market is willing to pay for its solution. The challenge is less about brilliant ideas than it is about focused execution. Only one thing is certain: it will not be a straight run and, along the way, many teams will need to make painful ‘pivots’ — changes of direction — as they respond to feedback from users.
Some interesting patterns emerged from the selection process:
- More than 30% of participants in this program are Singapore Citizens or Permanent Residents, up from 20% in 2012.
- The average team size is just over 3 people, with the ‘holy trinity’ of a ‘hacker, a hipster and a hustler’ well represented to span the skills of coding, design and business.
- Around 10% of the entrepreneurs taking part are women, double the number from last year.
23,472 visitors from 148 countries went online to read about the program. They faced a challenging application process that 262 teams entered and from which eight emerged ready for the program. The rest received detailed feedback and an offer of support to fix the issues that seemed to hold back their chances. The hope is that many will be ready for future programs, which JFDI.Asia will now run twice each year.