Forget Silicon Valley, Pie wants to build a global enterprise software firm in Singapore

Pie founders Pieter Walraven (left) and Thijs Jacobs.

Singapore is often described as a tiny red dot, a cosmopolitan oddity surrounded by much larger nations. With a tiny domestic market and a cultural affinity more tied to the United States than Indonesia or Thailand, the country can be a deathly fish bowl, trapping startups who struggle to expand beyond local shores.

But Pie, an enterprise software startup that wants to change the way people share media content at work, thinks differently. Its founders, Pieter Walraven and Thijs Jacobs, believe they can build a global SaaS company from Singapore, despite being located far from Silicon Valley.

Part of their confidence stems from the fact that many top decision makers from global companies are located in Singapore, and there’s much less competition from enterprise startups for their attention.

“In the United States, the CIO of Coca-Cola probably has six months of free meals waiting for him,” says Jacobs, “there’s a long line before it’s your turn.”

Pie does not believe having a direct line to top CIOs in the US is as important as, say, getting funding or growing their user base.

So far, the company has had no problems getting trickles of both. From the founders’ past work at Zag, a corporate incubator run by Publicis-owned creative agency Bartle Bogle Hegarty, the startup got access to test users who tried an early version of the app and loved it.

Since then, they’ve gotten about 500 companies on the platform, including Spotify, LinkedIn, Edelman, and Nestlé, with “thousands” of daily active users – not bad for an app that only officially launched this week.

Prominent local international angels have jumped on board too, with the startup raising a total of $800,000 for its seed round so far. Investors include former Singapore Airlines and SingTel chairman Koh Boon Hwee, Innovation Works partner Chris Evdemon, and Peng Tsin Ong, founder of Match.com and widely considered one of Singapore’s most successful tech enterpreneurs.

“Before we met Peng, we thought he was some serious business guy. But at our first meeting at Four Seasons Hotel, he turned up in crocs and shorts instead. We didn’t expect that. He’s quite hands-on as an investor, giving detailed product feedback and suggesting to us to change or tweak certain features,” says Walraven.

A dressed-down enterprise app

Essentially, Pie is a web app for sharing and discussing media content with colleagues. It’s a focal point for companies to consolidate their knowledge and generate ideas and inspiration – kind of like a Pinterest for enterprises. Marketing and advertising creatives have taken a liking to the app.

Several things stood out to me the first time I logged onto Pie. Unlike most enterprise apps, it has a cheery, less serious interface more befitting of a consumer service. It’s also really simple to use: the app is focused on doing one thing well – making sharing and discussing content a breeze.

Pie chasing explosive user growth, not revenue