Staying objective and setting priorities as evidence flows in from potential customers were two key learning points for Will Lim Jing Jie and the team at JFDI Discover startup CaptionCube.
1. How did you hear about JFDI Discover?
Boon Pang discovered JFDI Discover during one of the weekly Friday night JFDI Open House sessions. We quickly jumped on board and applied right before the deadline.
2. Tell us about your startup and team – who are you, and what are you aiming to do?
CaptionCube is a web-based crowd-sourced captioning platform that helps Institutes of Higher Learning provide more accessible and inclusive education with captioned lecture videos for those who need it. We aim to provide quality, timely and affordable captioning solutions by integrating speech recognition technology with crowd-sourced transcription.
Our team is made up of 3 members with diverse expertise and background – BP, Kunqi and JJ. BP is our tech expert, JJ taps into the insights and support from the community that we are working on, while Kunqi focuses on marketing and project management. We started off as a team previously known as L-Cube and now we have moved on to brand our web-based captioning platform CaptionCube.
3. Why did you start this business? How has this impacted your life?
We met at a platform that was exploring solutions to address challenges faced by persons with disabilities (PWDs). Recognising our common passion to address issues faced by the Deaf community, we got together as a team.
Recognising that education is a fundamental stepping stone for any individual to realise his/her potential, L-Cube chose to develop captioning solutions that would open up another channel that is accessible to deaf/hard-of-hearing learners.
The solution that we are developing not only benefits deaf/hard-of-hearing learners, it also enhances the learning experience for all. In the age of online learning, video captions bring about multiple benefits to both the video provider and the viewer, as it improves searchability of the content, engagement between the educator and learners and expands the size of the target audience.
4. What were some of the challenges you faced before joining JFDI Discover?
We were clear about our big picture goal, we had ideas and work to be done but we were looking for a more structured way to work towards achieving our goals, as well as ways to check that we are heading in the right direction.
5. How did JFDI Discover help your startup?
JFDI Discover introduced to us a number of useful videos and readings, which gave us better direction and helped us structure/prioritise our risks. The mentor check-ins yielded insights that we had not previously considered.
6. What was your favorite and least favorite aspect of JFDI Discover?
Our favorite aspect of JFDI Discover would be the learning experience gained from the recommended videos and the process of creating and refining our idea based on the Lean Canvas model.
The least favorite aspect would be feeling a little lost at the start and trying to catch up on happenings and the tasks via the computer. It would have been good to have clearer direction/focus on how to use some of the tools like Pirate Metrics. We also would have liked if there was an official face-to-face meetup session (with online chat for the overseas participants), so that we can get to know about the different startups and get our bearings quickly in 1 session.
7. What is the one lesson you took away from JFDI Discover that you think other founders should know too?
It is important to be objective and be aware of subjective perspectives (as individuals, as a team), assumptions and risks in the project. We have got to be disciplined, work on them and not dwell on them.
8. Where is your team planning to go from here?
We are kickstarting a community initiative – “Caption It Forward” which aims to provide up to 4 hours of free captioning services for deaf/hard-of-hearing learners in Institutes of Higher Learning. Our trial web-based platform will be used to combine the inputs from the community of transcribers, and we will continue to refine and improve our platform based on users’ feedback.
9. Which resources do you look to for startup related advice? Have you read any books on startups?
Friends who have created their own successful startups, as well as friends who are in a more advanced stage of developing their startups are extremely great source of information and support! We also fortunate that because of our diverse backgrounds, we are able to tap into our different pool of friends whenever we have questions in the areas of technical, legal issues and marketing. We have not devoured any particular startup books, but some of books that we have been recommended to read include “Running Lean”, “Venture Deals” and “The Rise of the Reluctant Innovator”.
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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.