Interview with Kok Choong Ong – Founder and CEO of Teliwave

Serial entrepreneur Kok Choong has founded two funded companies, one of which remains in the past, but the other, Teliwave, the company behind Hoiio (helps you reduce your mobile call rates), is alive and kicking. Teliwave has so far raised a total of S$1.5m in angel funds and grants. We had a chat with Kok Choong to find out a bit more about his story and that of Teliwave and Hoiio.

Tell us your story, what were you doing before setting up Teliwave?

Beside Teliwave, I am also the founder for another NUS EDTF funded company, ByteSquare Technology, which was working on mobile data technologies in areas of mobile surveillance and mobile content. However, we were not able to attract much investor interests into ByteSquare businesses and all the founders have moved on to work on something else. For me, I moved on to setting up Teliwave.

What motivated you to set up Teliwave?

Somewhere inside me, I always dream of building a great company in the mobile space. With committed investors on board with a common dream of conquering the mobile telecommunication spaces, it was an opportunity that I relish. The fruit of this dream is now named Hoiio, which stands for a Smarter Way to Say Hello.

Hoiio is the product most of us associate with Teliwave. For people who are unfamiliar, what is Hoiio?

Hoiio is a smarter way to communicate. Hoiio provides enterprise grade international call and SMS services at up to 80% discounts off the standard telecom rates.

What is so interesting about Hoiio? What makes it different from existing competitors out there?

A picture speaks a thousand words: