The unexpected trip to Startcon's Brisbane Regional Final for Pitch for $1 Million

I am making up for being dead to the world during most of August and September! Although Startcon’s Pitch for $1 Million wasn’t on my to go list. Until, Little Tokyo Two gave me a chance to get free tickets on Thursday night, for the Friday event. When life gives you these opportunities, it’s foolish not to take them. So I took it and was treated to a great day of interesting pitches, insightful talk and delicious food!

Normally, I do a detailed analysis of the pitches, but with 27 pitches at a duration of 2 minutes plus 3 minutes of questions, it’s simply too many to cover. So let’s start with the winner: Conpago!

As I am working as a consultant CTO for two QUT Foundry based startups dealing with aged care, I had heard Conpago mentioned a few times. But this was the first time I heard them pitch. It was a very well done pitch. They got across clearly the pain point they were addressing, the benefits they were bringing, and they finished with seconds to spare! Two minutes is not a long time, and some of the other pitches failed to get across clearly the why and what of their existence. Conpago on the other hand, had a clear story, that they communicated well. I felt my speech points going up just listening to them!

Second place went to Monarc Global, who want to be Uber of private air travel. As far as the pitch went, there were better presenters then Monarc, but they certainly had the sexiest business idea. Also, while they struggled to fit everything into the two minutes, they still got across their why and what. It was also very clear that the business had some real traction. So while I think they need to practice more before the finals, I think they have a solid shot at winning the $1 million prize!

Becon Health took out third place. I missed the initial pitch for Becon Health and Parent TV. But luckily, both were selected to be the six semifinalists. So I got to hear Becon’s pitch, and Parent TV’s too of course. It was a good pitch, and I know they why and what of their existence. Becon Health is also something that I am surprised doesn’t exist already. But I suppose, like Monarc, Becon Health needed the economy in a certain place to be viable. We do live in a gig economy, a sharing economy and an on-demand economy. So it makes sense for the market to be ripe for Becon Health.

As I mentioned, the initial 27 pitches were paired down to six semi-finalists. These six founders pitched again, and from there ranks the three winners were chosen. Parent TV was one of them. They are an online content factory that provides tailored educational content for parents. It’s a good business idea that was pitched with clarity.

Kids Wantu was another semi-finalist. Way back in February 2017, I wrote about attending a Meetup on how to market apps. The post isn’t very detailed, and the meet-up no longer exists. But the in the post I did mention that one of the meet-up members had presented her app. That member was Anne-Marie Walton, and at the time, she was just getting ready to launch Kids Wantu to the general public. It was amazing to see how far Kids Wantu had come in the almost two years since the Meetup. Kids Wantu didn’t place this time, but I think the app is set for big things to come!

The sixth finalist was WatchYourTalk and I was a bit surprised they got in. The pitch was good but I am very sceptical of the idea. The startup wants to build an app that monitors speech to detect signs of depression. The founder assured the audience the app was based on sound science. But I would need to see the research behind it to be convinced.

I personally wouldn’t have chosen UPTEK in the place of WatchYourTalk. The founder was wearing the air bands while pitching. The product also seemed ready for Kickstarter. I certainly would back the product should it ever come on Kickstarter. That’s not to say that there was more evidence in the pitch that UPTEK AirBands had more solid science behind it then WatchYourTalk. I think that a band that helps you build more muscles by restricting airflow in short bursts is more likely then an app that detects if you are at risk of suicide based on your speech pattern.

From the other pitches, the ones that didn’t make it out of their group, there was World's Biggest Garage Sale whose full pitch I got to hear at Creative 3. I also got to see the 2-minute version of Space Y’s pitch from last Tuesday’s iLab event.

Finally, I wanted to take note of Amber, the only crypto-startup to pitch. The founder of Amber, Aleksandar Svetski, is on the opposite side of the Bitcoin vs Bitcoin Cash debate to my good friend Brendan Lee. They even debated each other recently! If you are wondering what the hell I am talking about, let me refer you to the video of the debate.

Overall, it was a good day. I did learn a few things from the invited speakers. Maybe I’ll do another post to delve a bit more into what I learnt. I am glad I went. Thank you again to Little Tokyo Two for the tickets!

Chatfor10 & I

At Startup Weekend I attended in November, I connected with the founder of Neon King Kong, the company behind Chatfor10. The app aims to make it easier for refugees and people seeking asylum to practice communicating in a language they are learning. Chatfor10 is essentially a designed to facilitate English microlearning. Chatfor10 is getting a fair bit of traction and recognition, having been recently accepted into Impact Boom's Elevate+ Accelerator Program.

Right now the learners and volunteers are just using Whatsapp. But Whatsapp is a cumbersome, manually intensive to administer and restrictive. In other words, Chatfor10 needs to be its own app and that's where I come in.

I have joined the Chatfor10 development team to help develop the Neon King Kong platform, which has ambitions beyond Chatfor10, as well as the Chatfor10 microlearning app. The grand vision is that Chatfor10 will be the first learning app off the Neon King Kong assembly line. If it is successful, other apps will be added to both support Chatfor10 and expand the learning services offered by Neon Kong Kong. For me personally, I am approaching this as a learning opportunity. I am looking forward to the challenge involved with being part of the Neon King Kong development team!

Tea Tracker First Ad Campaign: Results and Lessons Learnt

I was waiting for waiting to implement a few more features before launch the first advertising campaign for the Tea Tracker. However, fellow attendees of the App Marketing Meetup pointed out to me that with 352 million mobiles running Android. I shouldn't worry too much about making a bad first impression. So I went ahead and created a Facebook Ad campaign for the Tea Tracker. Also, a Facebook page to complement the Ad campaign.

For the Ad, I had it run for about three weeks last month. I set a lifetime budget of $200. I narrowed down the demographics to people who were interested in tea. I also filtered for people in countries known for heavy tea consumption. According to Facebook, the ad reached 474,423 people. Not bad for $200 but what about the return on investment?

The return wasn't great, but that is understandable given that the Tea Tracker is a very specialised app. I did increase my lifetime downloads by 120 people. But did not retain most of them. But that's understandable because, again, this is a specialised app for the niche market of boutique tea drinkers. But I am glad I tried running a Facebook Ad campaign. It'll be useful experience for when I do have an app with a wider potential audience.

The biggest outcome from the Ad campaign was the creation of the Tea Tracker App Facebook page because I did get likes to the page. It's only 25 people but there is potential for the page to grow, but only if I provide worthwhile content. To that end, I am writing reviews of the teas I drink. Publishing them on Medium and cross-posting them on Facebook. I have two reviews up already and hope to review a new tea each week. Who knows, the reviews might lead to more downloads and engagement for the Tea Tracker!

Tea Tracker Slide

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These are the slides I presented to Brisbane iOS/Android App Marketing this month. The focus was on how I am currently monetizing the app, ads, and how I am marketing, I am not. I am in the process improving the UI, adding a social media sharing feature, embedding some affiliated links etc. Once I have completed the necessary upgrades, I plan to undertake a Facebook ad campaign. Facebook ads are cheaper than full Google Adwords campaigns. Plus I can theoretically better target Facebook ads to tea lovers. At any rate, stay tuned for more tea tracker news!

Introducing the Tea Tracker! from Sharmin (Tinni) Choudhury

Social Media Marketing: Planoly

It's almost time for next month's meetup of the Brisbane iOS/Android App Marketing group. So I am still in time with my thoughts on this month's meetup! I presented my Tea Tracker to the group this month and the chief discussion was about how to hire the right developer. But I was more interested in the secondary presentation of the Instagram social media marketing support tool: Planoly.

Briefly, Planoly allows you to plan out your Instagram posts for days and weeks in advance. So that every day, you can post something on your Instagram feed without having to do daily work. Planoly's UI makes it easy to layout images, allowing users to ensure they get enough visual variety in their feeds. Not to mention, make sure that their feeds are full of interesting and relevant images.

To help with the actual image content, Planoly also pulls in public Instagram feeds. Allowing users to easily repost other's people's photos. This latter part is allowed under Instagram's terms and conditions, but there are many who would consider this morally dubious. Especially since proper photo credit is not automatically affixed, but instead left to the Planoly user.  Personally, I would always attribute properly just to avoid any potential backlash from angry content creators.

Social media marketing is new territory for me. As such, I am woefully unaware of the tools and support that's out there for building your brand through social networking. I'll definietly checkout other tools that are available, not to mention, use Planoly to market the Tea Tracker when I am ready!