Honestbee's Isaac Tay on Singapore's burgeoning sharing
economy, why start-ups fail and how his grocery shopping service
does your work for you.
Isaac Tay is the co-founder of honestbee,
a local grocery delivery company that delivers within one hour.
Prior to this, he was the founder of SGEntrepreneurs, which
was acquired by Tech In Asia for an undisclosed sum. Here, he talks
to us about the sharing economy, why he started honestbee and his
thoughts on the local start-up scene in Singapore.
We started LifeOpp
[honestbee’s precursor] because of a common belief
that the process of hiring and finding a job online can be better
and more fruitful for everyone. Folks like you and I can benefit
from LinkedIn, but how about the best waiter in your favorite
restaurant?
LifeOpp and honestbee
share one thing in common–providing the masses who
can’t work fixed hours with income opportunities. Before the shift,
we were considering a few niches, for example home cleaning and
grocery shopping.
The mission is to create
happy homes with delightful services and flexible
jobs. The current vision of the company is to build the largest and
most convenient online supermarket in Asia.
Once we
know [of our employee’s] skills and the hours they
can work, there are many other [niches] we can enter to generate
demand for this labour. The key is to support this workforce in
doing more on-demand jobs efficiently so that the per hour wage
increases.
We chose grocery
shopping because of these two reasons: quality can be
standardised and maintained, and grocery shopping happens more
frequently than home cleaning.
We don't view
ourselves as competitors to any businesses out there.
As an on-demand business, we add value to traditional supermarkets
and boutique stores. Our commitment to quality, as well as our
trained, dedicated concierge shoppers and speedy delivery bees are
our unique advantages that allow us to ship fresh products among
other things.
Our belief is
that we should not just start a business just to
create wealth, but also to improve people’s lives. That is what
drove us to start honestbee–to be a social impact business.
We want to
create sustainable job opportunities for our shoppers
and delivery team targeted at all individuals who are looking for
more flexible working hours. These may include working mothers,
retirees, or individuals who may only have a specific amount of
hours to work.
I think [more of the
world is going freelance] for two very different
reasons.
First, the highly
skilled workforce is using better tools to manage
their time and projects better, so it becomes less necessary for
organisation under a firm. While going freelance seemingly
sacrifices financial stability, it allows them to increase their
per hour income, and satisfies their need to constantly do
different and more interesting work.
At the same
time, it allows more flexibility in time and travel
plans.
Second, for the lower
skilled workforce, there are less economic
opportunities because they are being replaced by either technology
or low cost labour.
To them, going
freelance is a means to secure as much employment as
possible; it is very possible that this segment of society is being
under employed. Chances are, they want to work more but they
can’t.
I can understand that
feeling [of not being able to earn enough]. I think
with the growth of the sharing economy there are more opportunities
to increase your income.
For
example, you can rent out the spare room in your
private apartment on Airbnb, or share a journey with your car
on GrabHitch. You can also
be our shopper bee to help our customers pick up groceries, since
you might already be shopping for yourself and get paid at the same
time.
In my
opinion, one of the main reasons why start-ups fail
is the lack of a product fit for the market. As such, it is
important to have sort of a checklist to evaluate the venture.
For me, it
is whether 1) will it improve people’s lives; and 2) are there
people willing to pay for this improvement to their lives.
I think Singaporean
startups also fail because we don’t think regional
from day one. Singapore is a good place to start but you got to
build to quickly grow out of it.
Recruiting great
talent is a major challenge as we are competing with
more established brands for their attention. However, with our
recent funding announcement that we are backed by world-class
Silicon Valley investors, this has been changing.
To me, the biggest
achievement is the talent that we have recruited. The
team has a shared culture of excellence, where we trust each other
to do the best work we humanly can do to fulfil the company’s
mission and vision.
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