Thursday, March 17, 2016

The Biggest Startup Trends

The Biggest Startup Trends Read complete article at Vulcan Post

We’ve all heard the general warning ringing in entrepreneurs’ ears. 9 out of 10 startups fail, and yet many continue to unheedingly brave choppy waters to realize the dream of startup utopia and some fortunate garage techies have even gone on to become giants in a fraction of time it took their larger, older competitor behemoths. We’ve seen the phenomenal growth spurt of tech companies like Google, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Airbnb, Uber and Paypal, just to name a few.

Brace yourselves as we’re going to see a great deal more of disruption in some of the following investment sweet-spots:

1. FinTech Is The New Golden Boy

Investments into FinTech startups quadrupled in 2013, leapfrogging from just over $3 billion to over $12 billion in 2014. Once upon a time, Thomas Watson of IBM predicted that our world would never need more than 5 computers, at once.

Riding on the tsunami of technology, FinTech may upend all our expectations of how money will be handled in the next generation, when society goes cashless and tasks once carried out with physical money, desktops, and human interaction become one-touch transactions handled swiftly and completely over digital interfaces.

If you look at how pervasive financial services are in every sphere of our lives, you’d see the opportunity for disruption is tremendous! Observe the rise of Estonia-based TransferWise and how they’re disrupting the global finance market by bypassing heavy bank fees with low cost peer-to-peer money transfers.

Traditional revenue streams banks and middle-men brokers have enjoyed monopolistic control over will face direct challenges and the threat of obsolense if they don’t adapt fast enough—as more FinTech entrepreneurs start questioning old and inefficient ways of doing things and investors flock into the space with backing.

Image courtesy of pannawat at FreeDigitalPhotos.net
2. Data Is Sexy

With easy access to analytics, intuitive decisions can now be strategically made based on logic, not just gut-feel. Today, apps and softwares that can generate actionable insights by mining terabytes of user data are gaining widespread adoption.

The oil of today, data equals better foot traffic, bigger sales numbers, and overall increased operational efficiency. More and more developers and entrepreneurs are seeing the potential of business intelligence, and attracting investors with the magnet of a significant and meaningful new revenue channel.

With shared APIs and business data made available to relevant business partners, useful marketing insights can now be drawn upon to develop new user acquisition strategies and innovate further. Any wonder why so many geeks found Star Trek’s super-logical mastermind Data hot? If Data isn’t sexy, what is?

3. Mobile-Ordering Or Booking Apps Are More Than Just Fads

From restaurants to shopping malls, personal errands and even flower gifting, mobile ordering apps are becoming a key transaction channel for fast and efficient service providers. Every other quick-service restaurant (QSR) these days are testing some type of mobile ordering capability right now.

Look at Starbucks, who recently launched its own mobile order-ahead feature and is now reportedly being used heavily among its loyal coffee fans. Taco Bell’s average order values are 20% higher in its mobile-order-ahead app than in its stores. Locally, home-grown mobile-booking app heroes like KFit, BeMalas, BloomThis, GrabCar, TableApp, OffPeak and EatCakeToday are making pre-ordering everything from yoga facilities to tempting chocolate salted caramel cakes easy, and helping users save time, petrol and money.

They’re also maximizing the benefits of mobile ordering by incentivizing customer usage through loyalty programs and perks. Honestly, why run around looking for that melt-in-your-mouth dessert on a hot day for a special occasion when you can resort to EatCakeToday? Makes you just want to order a cake today itself and get it on your doorstep moist and un-melted within 4 hours, max! Continue reading at Vulcan Post

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Restograph is proof of the exciting Philippines startup ecosystem

Restograph is a new Philippines-based business intelligence Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) platform that helps restaurant owners store and analyse their legacy and offline PoS data to create actionable insights to increase sales.



That may sound like a mouthful, but it’s a space increasingly being eyed by startups in Asia. Offering ways for offline businesses to boost performance in the digital age presents a big opportunity, and should be considered just as important as the analytics and tracking software behind all good websites.




"Restograph grabs your PoS data, translates that into something useful and delivers it in such a way that it’s easy to understand... We built it out for two months late last year." Brian Dimarucot, Co-founder, Restograph told e27.



A much popular restaurant POS data analytics software has started in the Philippines. It also helps restaurant owners and managers unlock and discover the secrets of your POS data by transforming those raw data into readable trends and projections. By its presentation, you'll be able to discover which of your menu items are selling and which are not. It also helps you to track the voided items or refunds which prevents restaurant theft.

Start analysing your POS data.. Startup, Startup Trends, Philippine Startup, Data Analytics, POS Data, Restaurant Management Software, Restaurant POS, Restaurant Theft, Restaurant Tools, Restograph