Long time no talk. We have been busy doing impressing stuffs (or at least we hope you will be impressed ;) )

Just a quick article today to talk about our new live website, Sevaris Marine.

Sevaris Marine is the exclusive retailer of NorthStar products throughout Australiasia and has entered the Australian marine market in 2013. They wrote a great article about who they are on their blog.

An exciting project for our team to look at the branding and the designing of this showcase website and a technical challenge to get it running on top of WordPress. I know, it doesn’t look like a WordPress. That’s because we have put a lot of front-end customisations and back-end developments together. But it was worth the effort, no?! Have a look at the wide-screen carrousel on the landing page, browse the product catalogue specifically designed for NorthStar series products and be impressed by the boats look and quality with the amazing product visuals and detailed specifications on every product page.

Our collaboration with the Sevaris team has been intense, hard-working and we are extremely proud of the result we have ended up with. Special thanks to Thibault, Jamie, Tiffany, Ben and Matt!

The Aussie NQ team!

The SmallTalkBigTalk’s website

Hi Jack, can you tell us about yourself and your background?

I was born in Malaysia. After finishing high school in Malaysia, I went to university in Melbourne, worked in Kuala Lumpur and in Singapore for a few years after graduating with an IT degree, before migrating to Australia 9 years ago. I was in IT for the last 16 years, worked in Finance, Consulting and Telco industries. Quitted IT in June 2012 to become a full time dad for my second born. I’m married and I’m a father of two, first son named Sean, a energetic boy who is turning three this december. The second born is my Business, who was born on the 16th Aug 2012, its name is SmallTalkBigTalk.

What’s the story behind SmallTalkBigTalk?

Inspired by our own experience and background — my wife is Korean, we have been travelling and living in many countries — we see a common problem in every cities we go, where people are living within their own community. Everyone has a dream before moving to a new country, they want to learn the language, experience the local culture, have local friends and have a good lifestyle. But sadly, for some of them the reality doesn’t match once they arrive in the new cities, and before they know, they start moving into their own comfort zone, speak only their native language, mix within their own community and start forgetting about their initial dream. I am so sad and so upset about this situation — it doesn’t need to be this way, everyone has their own skills and strengths — and just because they are slightly disadvantaged from language and local knowledge, they are not able to live the lifestyle they deserve. There is something that needs to be done here. Imagine how much they can contribute to the economy if we can help to resolve this problem, and this is why and what we are doing!

I would like to take the credit, but I am not this smart. My wife Chloe saw this model in other country many years ago, we are taking this original model, combining it with different flavours like social networking, native market focus, Australian culture and lifestyle, then repackaging it to become SmallTalkBigTalk.

Tell us a bit more about what SmallTalkBigTalk currently is

Launched mid August, I started the market evaluation 5 weeks afterwards by conducting Talking Groups (consists of 1 Host and 4 members). The Host guides members to have an English conversation for an hour with a prepared topic, the objective of this is to collect feedback of the session. We ran about 100 hours, members who have attended the Talking Group are ranging from people just arrived in Australia for 2 days to those who have been living here for over 5 years. Members are loving it, 80% of them keep coming back, just because they are getting so much value from this Talking Group. We have officially launched our business yesterday.

Sessions have been free for a while but not anymore. What is the business model behind the concept?

The Talking Group was free while we were in Trial Period, which has ended two weeks ago. We ran them for free because we wanted to make sure our members were getting the most value from our service before they actually start paying. The Free Trial Period is also the period of time we used to conduct our market response. We learned from the feedback given from members who attended our Talking Group. They told us what they want, they told us how we can improve, they told us how we can help them. The learning we got is so invaluable. In conjunction with the business launch this week, a new product with all the learnings we received over the last 3 months will be introduced. This is to make sure our members get the best value — getting 3, 5 or 10 times what they are paying for.

As a brand new entrepreneur, what is your daily ToDo list?

Measure twice and cut once. Make quick decisions and take quick actions, then adjust, repeat and repeat until it is right and move to the next task.

How do you plan to get your project growing in the next few years? What are you expecting for STBT in your wildest dreams?

Vertically we can expend to other languages, horizontally we can expend to other cities and countries. We will be going to all major cities in Australia beginning of next year. Wildest dreams? I wouldn’t call it a dream, because I have already seen that happening in my eyes.

Have you got any exclusivity you want to share with NQAB’s readers?

A lot of Entrepreneurs, including myself, started a company without knowing what business is all about. Building a good product is essential, but making it profitable, sustainable and growable is a different thing and is a killer to many businesses. This is the reason why statistics show 87% of the businesses fail within 3 years. Do yourself a favour if you are building your first startup and you are not from the business side, make sure you understand the business of your startup as quickly and as detailed as possible. Go and spend some money attending a course or a program if you need to!

Entrepreneurs are magicians, we envision as far and as clear as we can. We bring people onboard and roll out the vision. A very experienced entrepreneur describe this as “It is simple, but it is not easy; it is not easy, but it is worth it”. Enjoy the ride!

Thank you so much Jack for sharing your adventure with us. All the best to your new born, SmallTalkBigTalk!

Make sure to visit the SmallTalkBigTalk’s website

The Tapestry website

Hi Andrew, can you tell us about yourself and your background?

Sure, although I’ve been around so long that my career is a little hard to categorize. I started out in technology, studying engineering & computer science at Sydney University. I did some electronics early in my career but very quickly moved into software, where I discovered I had a real love of user interfaces and user experience, and spent several years working on the technology side in this area. As my career developed I moved into senior management, with my last “proper” job prior to launching Tapestry being Director of Engineering & Technology at Honeywell – by which time I don’t think I had written a line of code in about ten years! It wasn’t quite a standard big-company career, however, as my habit of trying to do things differently from everyone else meant I took some big chunks out of that time to travel and write books about my adventures in Africa, Asia and the Middle East, which have been published in the US, UK, Australia and even translated into German by National Geographic. It wasn’t until I founded Tapestry that I was somehow able to combine the two parts of my career – creative and technical – into a single job that now keeps me endlessly entertained!

Where does your initial idea come from? How did you come up with this project?

A few years ago I was studying an MBA in China at Beijing’s Tsinghua University. At one point we were looking at population demographics and some of the predictions we could make about economic change not only in China, but in all developed economies over the coming decades. It was pretty clear that the biggest challenge all of these countries face is the ageing population. It’s the biggest demographic trend in human history, and is going to transform industries, governments and societies over the coming decades. It wasn’t until I then encountered the field of social entrepreneurship, however, that the idea of Tapestry really clicked. Social entrepreneurship is a field in which companies aim not only to achieve financial sustainability, but also to fulfil a social mission. I had spent pretty much my whole life making products which make the world a better place, so this seemed like the best idea I had ever heard. I proceeded to complete my Master’s thesis on social entrepreneurship and founded Tapestry a few months later.

What is Tapestry’s clients promise? Who is your solution intended for?

Tapestry is a small company with the big vision of enriching the lives of seniors across the world, by helping them stay connected to their families, their friends and the communities around them. Our users are generally grandparents or parents who find themselves being left behind by constantly changing technologies, and as a result are not as connected to their children’s lives as they would like to be.

How many staff does the Tapestry team currently have?

We’ve got five staff: one designer, one front-end developer, one Ruby on Rails developer, one Android/mobile developer, and myself.

Is the Tapestry solution a lot different from what you were initially thinking of?

The details are constantly changing, but the core concept is still pretty constant. In the beginning we thought that younger family members wouldn’t want to use the product for themselves, so we focused primarily on our senior users. It turns out that families want to be able to collaborate and share in ways that are different from what’s currently offered by existing platforms. So we’re now building in some of those features.

How has been technically developed your solution?

Our back-end runs on Ruby on Rails, our web front-end has a combination of backbone.js and bootstrap, and of course we also have our Android tablet software which is written in Java.

The Tapestry Tablet

Can you quickly introduce us your business model?

We provide the Tapestry service as a paid subscription for Tapestry “Simplicity” accounts (free for family members). We also sell the Tapestry tablet direct to customers.

So far, what has been the hardest hurdle to step over for you?

I think raising capital is the hardest, because the outcome is so uncertain, and it’s such a binary outcome. The product development always throws up challenges, and we’re always learning about things we should have done better, but they are always much more in our control.

How do you plan to get your project growing in the next few years? What are you expecting for Tapestry in your wildest dreams?

We’ll be growing our customer base here in Australia over the next six months, with a view to raising capital for international expansion late next year. Wildest dreams? That we’re going to be one of Australia’s favorite success stories, of course!

Thank you Andrew and all the best for Tapestry!

And to discover what Tapestry is really about, make sure to visit the Tapestry website

Can you tell us about yourself and your background?

Myself? Well… I live a little bit north of Australia… in Singapore. I settled in four years ago with my wife after having worked in France. After graduating in a French business school, I started to work in finance but I always kept an eyes on what was happening on the internet. I was reading a lot about e-commerce until a point where I needed to experience it by myself and came White As Milk idea.

What’s the story behind White As Milk (WAM)?

I always had lots of ideas about products that could be sold online but when one night I ve seen myself running to the supermarket for a stupid can of baby milk powder. I told myself that I would pay to receive every month the same number of milk cans and diapers at home rather than queuing at the supermarket. I can understand that shopping needs sometimes to feel, try, touch even smell a product before buying it. But this is not the case of diapers and milk. Buying diapers and milk for babies is just boring… This is how the idea of selling diapers and milk on a subscription basis came. A solution which addresses a real need ;-)

How did it get started in Singapore?

I started in Singapore by communicating about the project in November 2011 with White As Milk blog, and as I felt a little bit lonely I asked other parents in Singapore to contribute to the blog. In addition to sell baby products, I thought that It would be a good idea that white as milk becomes a place for parents to chat and share parenting tips and life in Singapore. The shop has been launched 10 month later in September 2012 with NewQuest help.

What platform do you use and why have you chosen this solution?

I chose Prestashop because I heard really good feedback about it and also because NewQuest confirmed me that they could develop a subscription module on top of it.

The subscription model is a very interesting idea: can you enlighten us on how it technically works?

Implementing it was in the end more complicated than I thought. Parents have access to a dashboard (separate from the cart) where they can manage their “subscribed” products. Remove, add products or change quantity, decide if they want a 3, 6 or 9 month subscription and choose the date of their monthly delivery for the coming months. 5 days before the delivery they will receive a reminder telling them their products are coming and if they want, they can add additional products to benefit the free delivery of the subscription. 2 days before the delivery, we send another email, telling them that we are processing the delivery (no action can be taken on the subscription). Parents can cancel anytime their subscription for no reason. The payment solution behind the subscription module is PayPal.

And how do you manage it on a daily basis (especially since you are a full-time father)?

Yes it is not easy. That is why, the fabulous Marion came on board just before the launch of White As Milk. Marion is doing her internship at White As Milk where she is in charge of mainly all ;-) She is really a great help! And unfortunately her internship ends in December this year ;-(

What are you expecting for WAM in the near future?

First I’d like to provide the best service that I can to White As Milk’s first customers. I think selling products on a subscription basis is not only selling products but it is also delivering a good service which must be 10 times better than queuing at the supermarket. Then, I have the ambition that with enough market share, white as milk will be one day big enough to compete with supermarkets in terms of prices by saving on structure costs. I really would like to check by myself that this idea can be true ;-)

Can we expect WAM to fly out to the Australian market?

I’d like but Singapore first. One country at a time. But if you can introduce me to potential partners in Australia to accelerate the development! I’m yours ;-)

Have you got any exclusivity you want to share with NQ’s readers?

Yes, do you know that White As Milk is not only selling diapers and milk but we source baby products that we love and we propose in our staff pick section, including this amazing natural baby skin care brand: Four cow farm, which comes (guess where?) from Australia. Of course! We love the family story behind this company.

Thank you Guillaume and all the best for you and WAM!

Thank you NewQuest.

If you want to know more, make sure you visit the White As Milk website.

It’s not the first time RedBull is coming up with crazy marketing ideas!

But this time, you have crazy and CRAZY! With the Stratos project, RedBull stepped up to a next level and are showing us once again that extreme sports are a great marketing channel…

If you didn’t follow the live event, you must have heard about it in the news: Felix Baumgartner realised a historical free fall supersonic jump 39km high from the stratosphere! A world-class challenge successfully completed.

The result? 3 world records:

• The first man to break the wall of sound (with a maximum speed of 1332km/h)
• The highest altitude reached by a man in a balloon (more than 39km)
• The highest free fall jump

The event gathered more than 8 millions people live on YouTube! And is also breaking records on social networks:

• 721,000 fans on the RedBull Stratos Facebook page
• 88,000 new fans after the jump
• 70% of fans liked the landing picture
• More than 51,000 photo shares
• 252,000 Twitter followers on @RedBullStratos
• 2000 tweets/second during the jump
• 103,000 new followers after the jump

The financial outcomes aren’t known yet for the sponsors, especially the number 1, RedBull. After 7 years of preparation and a couple of millions dollars invested, the brands will have no doubt their share of it.

“RedBull gives you wings” is clearly appropriate with this event! A first for a brand to partner on a project that big.

As m-commerce is getting more and more popular, it’s now classified ads turn to have a dedicated mobile platform!

Similar sites already exist but Shopigram seems like a first where you can easily and quickly buy or sell any products from your mobile.

This platform lets you create a classified ad in less than 30 seconds directly from your iPhone!

The Shopigram website’s listings are heavily inspired by Pinterest. They display products using a dynamic grid layout, arranging them vertically and positioning each product in the next available space in the grid.

The application is very user-friendly and straight forward to use. We can highlight 4 main functionalities:

• Buy: this is a listing of all classified ads with filtering capabilities by product type, location and condition.
• Map: thanks to the geolocation, an interactive map lets you see classified ads nearby.
• Sell: setup your ad online by filling up the relevant product information and by uploading a picture directly from your library.
• Friends: see what your Facebook friends are selling.

You also have the option to buy and sell with the web version! And very soon, Shopigram will be available on Android.

Buying your cereals with a Tweet is now a reality thanks to Kellogg’s!

London is definitely a very popular place to try new concepts. After the ultra High-Tech pop-up store from Burberry, it’s Kellogg’s turn to associate real and virtual shopping.

Using social media and specifically Twitter as a payment gateway seems like a crazy idea. The brand recently opened a concept store in Soho where you can buy your cereal pack in exchange of a tweet.

It’s pretty easy: you enter the shop, post a tweet describing which cereals you want followed by the #Tweetshop hashtag. The hostess then verifies your tweet and delivers your box!

Even if this temporary shop closes its doors today, hats off to Kellogg’s for using social networks to introduce their new Special K range.

The first screens from the new MySpace have been unveiled this Monday!

Just as Facebook is being blamed for publicly displaying old private messages, MySpace couldn’t dream of a better opportunity to present the new version of their social network.

Once the only social network around, MySpace suffered greatly from the Facebook growth. Acquired in June 2011 by Specific Media Group and Justin Timberlake, the music social network is clearly putting its money where its mouth is with this very slick demo!

The interface has been completely revised with a cleaner style, inspired from some of his competitors (Instagram, Pinterest, …). This new MySpace also connects with Facebook and Twitter.

So whether you’re a musician, photographer, filmmaker, designer or just a dedicated fan, we’d love for you to be a part of our brand new community.

Stay tuned!