Lessons learnt from mobile startups in DEMO Asia: Aim big; be disruptive

With the surge of smartphones, we are undeniably moving towards a “mobile-first” world. In this space, majority of the mobile companies that took stage on DEMO Asia 2012 aimed to help individual users connect better to the physical world.

Dr Gopi Kudrup, CEO of Telekom Malaysia R&D, highlighted how the prospects of mobile are limitless. However, it was disappointing to see that majority of the startups presented only incremental innovations.

With big players such as Apple having monopolistic power, Arnon Kohavi, Founder of Yarden VC, challenge the general audience to think big. Regardless of where we start our company; a startup should aim to do something disruptive and break existing monopolies.

Here, we give a low-down on whether some of the mobile startups embraced such an outlook.

FlexiRoam, Malaysia

Overview of how Flexiroam works

For business travelers, international calls are often made possible either via costly roaming services or good ol’ Skype. But while Skype is nice, you are stuck if there’s no wifi connection nearby and are forced to rack up hefty roaming charges. This predicament is often faced especially in developing countries like India or Vietnam.

But fret not. Founded by Jef Ong in 1st April 2011, Flexiroam aims to save thousands of business travelers with unlimited calls to over 200 countries at a flat rate. Flexiroam does not require any Internet connection for users to make calls. All that’s needed is for users to purchase a local SIM card when overseas, and register it with a Flexiroam pass. The process, demonstrated on stage, is simple.

What’s most impressive is that Jef has been bootstrapping Flexiroam thus far. Yet, the company has shown promising growth. Out of its over 2,000 customers, around 400 corporate clients have used Flexiroam at least twice in eight months. Earlier in February this year, 500 travel agencies have also bundled Flexiroam with their travel packages.

With such strong market validation, it is no wonder Arnon Kohavi, Founder of Yarden VC, chose Flexiroam as his favourite mobile company. For a deeper understanding of this startup, check out an interview we had with them last December.

SecQ.me, Malaysia

James Khoo, Founder of SecQ.me

Another strong contender in the mobile space was SecQ.me – a mobile guardian angel that constantly watches over us, triggering for help without requiring any intervention from users.