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“Imitation is the highest form of flattery, but clones kind of get it wrong because we are promoting individuality and being proud of being yourself”. Vinh Nguyen who founded RabbitReads – an online forum for consumer product reviews – learned to embrace that wisdom and recommends it to any startup founder, writes Cui-Lyn Huang.  …

I just got two emails asking about JFDI’s ‘success rate’ with startups. They set me thinking about the patterns of success and failure we’ve seen looking at well over 2,000 startup teams in the last few years and why we can now pass on 96% of the applications to JFDI Accelerate with confidence, writes JFDI…

Don Phan was shopping for groceries with his wife in Vietnam when he noticed a young woman. She was struggling to steer a motorbike while holding her baby and several large packs of diapers. This obvious ‘pain point’ inspired him to co-found a diaper delivery service, writes David Ongchoco Taembe.com was part of the JFDI 2015A…

A workshop held last night explored how automating legal documentation could be a key technology that helps startups scale across ASEAN. JFDI is spinning out the processes it has developed to address this pain point, writes JFDI co-founder Meng Wong First-time entrepreneurs imagine that cutting their first deal with investors will be a handshake and…

Lunchtime frustration with a vending machine stacked with unhealthy snacks inspired Walter Oh and Andrew Lim with the idea for a new business. But how to build it without a CTO? David Ongchoco picks up the story.   Snack Better And Healthier BoxGreen is building a personalized e-commerce brand for healthy, delicious and wholesome snacks currently…

The value of an accelerator program like JFDI Accelerate comes from its mentors. Their advice counts because they’ve been on the front line themselves. As an entrepreneur and and investor, Vinnie Lauria has seen startups both struggle and succeed to hack the challenge of growth, writes David Ongchoco Golden Gate Ventures Founding Partner and serial entrepreneur…

Pitching a startup at a demo day is one thing: getting through a meeting with investors to a ‘yes’ is another. That’s why JFDI has always included detailed criticism from investors through role play and a consistent set of success factors comes shining through, writes David Ongchoco. This week’s JFDI Accelerate investor role-play session saw…

Why don’t investors sign Non-Disclosure Agreements (NDA’s)? This is one of the most frequently asked questions in our pre-accelerator program,JFDI Discover. So much so that it’s one of the biggest worries of our potential participants – one team even pulled out of the program because of it. This post addresses that question once and for…

Open Frog is an informal forum where anyone can ask and answer questions, or discuss anything related to innovation, entrepreneurship and start-ups. Earlier this month, there was a discussion about the timing and relationships between pivots, investors and revenues. Pivots and Startups The idea of a pivot comes from the lean startup methodology. Pivoting is a…

How would you pitch the nicotine patch to a VC? There is a right way to do it! Customer: Somebody who smokes cigarettes. Market: There are 1.1 billion smokers in the world. Problem: Smoking is bad. Tobacco consumption is the single largest preventable cause of death in the world. Solution: The nicotine patch helps smokers…