I’m Royston, CEO of Zopim, GM (Chat) of Zendesk. Ask me Anything!

Hi TIA community,

I’m Royston, one of the founding engineers of Zopim, who was quickly promoted out of his depths to “take care of business” as CEO. Zopim is an award-winning live chat software that connects businesses with their online customers in real-time. In 2014, we were acquired by Zendesk, a leading customer service platform.

Today, our team is a big part of the APAC commercial headquarters in Singapore. We continue to innovate & invest in making chat a wonderful product within Zendesk’s customer service platform.

Fun facts about Zopim / Zendesk:

1. We throw kick-ass yacht parties. And it’s pretty amazing we’ve had no casualties so far.
2. Most employees gain a few pounds from our well-stocked pantry & alcohol collection. Got better after Ben & Jerry’s were removed from grocery list.
3. The others offset that with frequent ping-pong competitions. Fiercely contested. Close fight between Vietnam & Singapore. We learnt that Europeans and Indian players are.. meh 😉
4. Zopim & Zendesk were both founded in 2007
5. Before 2010, when you googled “live chat”, you’d find only raunchy stuff. Zopim helped legitimized this search term.
6. Just before Zopim’s official launch, we spent our last savings on clown wigs & hats for a co-founder’s birthday party!

Here are some pictures showing our gradual office upgrades over the years!

Condo Office (2012)

One Commonwealth Office (2013)

Haw Par Technocenter (2014)