If you want your startup tech business to succeed, build excellent software, adjust your plans depending on customer uptake, know your customers, and think of the price which users are willing to pay.
These are the tips Hugo Barra, Xiaomi Global Vice President and formerly Google VP for Android Product Management, shared to the local tech startup community during his visit in Manila.
Barra earlier announced that the rapidly-growing Chinese mobile phone firm has chosen the Philippines as its third market in Southeast Asia, a development that augurs well for the tech startups.
The Xiaomi executive was in town for a meeting hosted by Kickstart Ventures, Inc., a wholly-owned incubator and investment firm of Globe Telecom.
Xiaomi Global VP Hugo Barra talks to startup founders at the Kickstart office. In photo (L-R) are Hugo Barra (Xiaomi), Fabian Tilmant (Leanovation), Manny Nepomuceno, Anne Olvido (Xiaomi), Richard Eldridge (Lenddo), Mark Mackenzie (Lenddo), Jonathan Lansangan (Dynamic Objx), Terence Lok (ZAP, hidden), Cristina del Rosario (Sari Software Solutions), Ibba Rasul-Bernardo (Sari Software Solutions), Nix Nolledo (Hatchd), Philip Cheang (By Implication), Sergio Arroyo (Ascendant Technologies) and Kenneth Yu (By Implication).
Barra is in an authoritative position to talk about success. The company was just recently included in the 2014 Boston Consulting Group local dynamos, a group of 50 companies based in emerging markets that have succeeded by staying home and beating both multinationals and local, often state-owned companies.
This Chinese mobile-phone company has skyrocketed to success by capturing the enthusiasm of young people in China for the Internet. The company, founded in 2010, sold 18.7 million smartphones in China in 2013 at prices about half of those of comparable Samsung or Apple phones. Chief executive Lei Jun has ambitions to sell 60 million smartphones in 2014.
The BCG report says that while many emerging-market companies have global aspirations, the local dynamos are winning by catering to the needs of customers in their home market. Many of them are also developing world-class capabilities rivaling much larger, older companies.
Xiaomi knows their target customers well and lets their products grow with them. “The first 10,000 customers matter so much so I have to acquire the right customers,” Barra said, explaining that for Xiaomi, it means that they must build a “loyal, excited, vocal community of tech enthusiasts.”
Kickstart President Minette Navarrete enthused, “Xiaomi’s origins and character resonate with startup founders everywhere in the world: dream big, start small, scale fast. Hugo Barra is widely respected for his skills: he must be one of the best product people in the world! This visit is amazingly helpful, and truly inspirational to the tech community in the Philippines. We’re so pleased to have him come and have these intense and down-to-earth conversations with startup founders here.”
“They have chosen not to go the usual route of getting an endorser. They believe their products can stand on their own and sell. After seeing their high-end smartphone test unit, we agreed with that belief,” said Jonathan Earl Lansangan, COO and co-founder of Dynamic Objx Labs Inc, a Manila-based software development company which specializes in building web-based applications, mobile device applications, and Software-as-a-service (SAAS) products.
