We Are HK Founders: Catherine Tan of Notey

December 2, 2016 by

SUHK_1_Notey

 
Catherine Tan, founder and CEO of Notey, was born and raised in Hong Kong. After university in the UK she worked in investment banking in London and Hong Kong.
Catherine told us that despite her 70-hour workweek she was Chair of the Women’s Initiatives Network in her firm and helped setting up an educational non-profit. During that time is when she discovered her entrepreneurial spirit.
Notey, the Hong Kong based startup is a blog-searching engine. The mission of the startup is to help readers finding the best blog for any topic.

 

In your own words what does your startup do?

 
Notey helps you find the best blogs on any topic! Whether you’re researching your next travel destination or following the Olympics, we deliver you the most engaging articles from across thousands of independent publishers.

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We Are HK Founders: Tommaso Tamburnotti of Easyship

December 1, 2016 by

SUHK_1_Easyship
Tommaso Tamburnotti is one of the Easyship’s cofounders. Tech in Asia awarded Easyship as the best startup in Asia last year. Founded in 2014 in Hong Kong, Easyship was part of the first batch Swire properties’ accelerator, blueprint. It has now reached 110 countries, the logistic startup aims to facilitated shipping to its customers around the world.
Tommaso was born and raised in Italy and he attended Bocconi University in Milan. He worked in investment banking at Nomura in London for a year after graduating and then joined Rocket Internet where he worked as a director for marketplace in Lazada Malaysia and the regional director in Hong Kong. After two years at Lazada his next move was to start Easyship.

 

In your own words what does your startup do?

Easyship removes the pain of shipping internationally from eCommerce sellers.

 

Why did you create your startup?

 

When I was working at Lazada, my job was to help companies in Hong Kong and China expand their sales abroad. The main obstacle for them was the logistics. Shipping is not easy and shipping internationally is even more complicated. You need to know which shipping company to choose from the over 500 that exist, compute taxes and import duties, and know which documents you need and how to fill them in. It can be overwhelming. At Lazada, we were providing support and teaching merchants how to do this, but there were still millions of eCommerce sellers out there not receiving any help. So, together with my co-founder Augustin Ceyrac, we decided to start Easyship. Our idea was to build a platform that could be used by any eCommerce seller looking to expand their business overseas and wanting to save money and time on international shipping.
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Dragonair’s Inflight Magazine Declares “Asia is Innovating”

July 6, 2016 by

SR0716_p1_FRONTCOVER

This is an interview I did with Dragonair’s inflight magazine called Silkroad — they don’t have a website so they were gracious enough to allow to reprint the article in full here. I sat down with writer Katie Scott for about an hour in April and this is the result of it with insight from friends and ecosystem supporters Simon Squibb and Bay McLaughlin — I’ve attached the actual spread below with Chinese translation:

This is the Asian Century. The region is changing faster than arguably anywhere at any time in history, and innovation is at the heart of this transformation. In our new monthly series, Innovation Asia, we’re exploring new ideas, technology and entrepreneurship across the continent, one city at a time. But what is the big picture? In our first instalment, we look at how the winds of innovation are ready to swing east.

Six years ago, six people met in a Hong Kong coffee shop. They were there to share ideas, exchange contacts and give each other support as they embarked on the uphill slog of making their startup businesses a success. ‘At this early stage, there was more enthusiasm and ideas than investors and proper business plans,’ says Casey Lau, one of the co-founders of the group, StartupsHK. ‘Some of those early birds fizzled but the ones with sound ideas are still around today.’

The potential, however, was clear and the StartupsHK gatherings soon gained traction. Now the group has more than 10,000 people in its network and can no longer find a coffee shop big enough for its meetups. This story has parallels across Asia.

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