In 2011 I recall writing a lot of positive news on Taiwan’s group buying industry, so I expected 2011 to have been pretty good in the end. Pretty good as in, 30%, 40% growth.
I was wrong. In actuality it was a great year for daily deals here, with 66% growth in the last 9 months of 2011 alone (Goodlife stats only go back until March).
No one is celebrating more than the big 3: Groupon, Gomaji, and 17life. These companies represent 80% of the market and are responsible for driving most of its growth. Such dominance has turned other competitors into also-rans, which is probably why Yahoo, who has its own group-buy effort, decided to up their stake in Gomaji recently. If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em.
This pictures sums Taiwan group buying up pretty nicely: Groupon, Gomaji, 17life, and everyone else.
Groupon Taiwan (formerly AtlasPost) ate Gomaji and 17life's lunch at the end of 2011.
[read on!]
Andy and Jerry Kuo, founders of the Groupon Taiwan predecessor Atlaspost, announced yesterday they have left the American daily deals website. The resignations of the brothers, who held the positions of COO and President, represent a major shakeup for the daily deals website that represents half of Taiwan’s group buying market.
The two brothers are moving on to their next entrepreneurial pursuit, planning to launch five websites over the next two years, according to Asia One. Their new company, the “Kuo Brothers Entrepreneurial Co.,” in Nangang and will begin focusing their efforts on a web-based photo service. [read on!]
Happy Friday, everyone. A quick reminder that DEMO Asia Singapore is in less than two weeks. On 2/29, moderator and Venturebeat Editor-in-chief Matt Marshall will kick off three-day event that promises to showcase the newest emerging tech in Asia.
For being so sexy, TechOrange readers can get a 5% discount off admission by using the code TCO16T during ordering, which can be done here.
The speaker and sage list has been confirmed, and though I tried to find out if there were going to be any Taiwanese teams reppin’ the island, the DEMO team was tight-lipped. (I do see AtlasPost’s Jerry Kuo on there, though.) [read on!]
The last time Evernote’s Asia Pacific GM Troy Malone was here, he gave a keynote talk at III’s Social – Mobile – Integration discussion forum that raised my eyebrows. For one, he expressed a strong desire to work with partners in Taiwan and Korea, but it wasn’t until that moment that I realized how important the hardware partnerships were to a mobile app like Evernote.
Malone returned to the island last week, and Evernote has been busy in the time in between, acquiring four companies Stateside and incorporating them into Evernote. For a more thorough update on that, check out TechCrunch’s most recent interview with Phil Libin below (summary: Evernote has a crapload of cash sitting around but no one noticed when Evernote started acquiring other companies and it’s looking to buy even more in 2012 by adding intelligence and structure to Evernote.)
Malone himself added that Evernote is upping its presence in Asia this year. It’s opening offices in India, Seoul and Singapore. Here are his responses to my emailed questions: [read on!]
When Conde Nast’s WIRED was officially established in Taiwan last month, it was clear from the beginning that it was not going to be your traditional reproduction of the WIRED title. Its intention to be web-first with a periodical physical paper copy was clear from the outset, but it’s only now becoming clear how untraditional the publishers intended on being, after the appearance of a café called Wired Café in downtown Taipei. [read on!]
In traditional Amish society, to build a barn is a significant milestone that is as difficult and expensive as it is important to the welfare of the farming family building it. Because of this difficulty and importance, the entire Amish community comes together to assist in the building in a tradition called a barnraising.
I mention this not because I intend to build a barn (Taipei is a horrible environ for a barn, as it turns out) but because in Taiwan’s startup ecosystem, a figurative barn has been in the works. It’s a process that, as the Amish know, takes a community to build, and this week Taipei’s community of barnraisers just leveled up, and did so in a meaningful way.
In my ten months of keeping an eye on things here, I haven’t quite seen a week like the one that has just past. In less than seven days, venture capitalists TMI unveiled their incubator, the ambitious Startup Labs initiative launched its pilot program in Taipei, and just yesterday, the Silicon Valley darling Evernote hinted at deals to come in Taiwan and Asia at Mobile Monday last night. [read on!]
Leading figures from the entrepreneurial communities in Silicon Valley, Europe, and Taiwan descended on Microsoft’s Taipei offices last Friday to find out which five teams had made it through to the inaugural batch of Startup Labs, the new global initiative spearheaded by Clint Nelsen, co-founder of Startup Weekend and Arkady Moreynis, a prominent Internet entrepreneur and investor from Russia.
The 22-day acceleration program awards teams 1,000,000 NTD (~US$30,000) in exchange for 8% of company equity. Here’s what you need to know about the teams who stood out during the rigorous selection process: [read on!]
