As part of a series of interviews with top entrepreneurs, we ask Bob Chua, who started Pulse Group PLC, about his new company and his views on entrepreneurship.
Tell us about the company that you are currently managing? What does it do and why is it different?
After a 20-year career within the market intelligence industry, I’ve now started a venture in the fast growing luxury E-Commerce space targeted at the SE Asian Consumer called https://blinq.fashion
Basically, besides being a luxury fashion platform, we have taken the best of breed concepts from the US and Europe such as rental, fashion curation, pre-loved, and flash sales, and fused it into a single platform for consumers to select how, when and in what form they’d like to consume fashion. We also use Augmented Reality in a big way to allow users to augment the clothing range onto themselves which is convenient, and leads to lower returns, both of which attribute huge costs and margin loss to retailers. That is the gap we’re filling.
You started the Pulse Group PLC and before founding that you were involved in setting up TNS Interactive and Nielsen Online. Have you moved out of research and analytics for good or do you think it still has opportunities to explore?
I believe the foundation of analytics, consumer behaviour, and Big Data is integral to the success of any company today, probably even more so when I was more directly involved in the industry.
The engagement modes, tools, and methods have evolved dramatically however, and I’m now on the other side of the fence being a user, rather than a service provider…however I’m still a strong believer that everyone needs to measure their business metrics to succeed in todays hyper competitive world. There’s a multitude of data-points that we now need to and can measure, from Industry mega trends, to consumer web traffic, to sentiment, and a whole multitude of customer journey data, however the veracity is so immense that one needs to make sense of the velocity of data available today. There lies the opportunity.
So, to answer your question, I do strongly believe there is still a lot of potential for the industry, albeit in a much more technology savvy manner.
What is current growth like for BlinQ?
We’ve just started BlinQ a few months ago, however we have already installed a strong core team, a solid platform, and a big round of seed funding. Having started-up several ventures in my lifetime, I’ve now come to fine-tune the growth trajectory as much as possible to ensure we can move quickly without breaking too much along the way.
How long has it taken to get to this stage?
After my previous exits, I took some time off and sat on the boards of various tech companies, giving me some time to ponder my next move.
My career within TNS, Nielsen, and subsequently my own venture Pulse was all pretty much on steroids, and when you’re moving at such a speed, you have very little time to reflect and think of what to do next. The short break from the drivers seat allowed me to study the mega trends of consumer behaviour, the domain of luxury, the E-Commerce and logistics space, and allowed me to fine-tune the model of what is now BlinQ. I think it took a good 12 months to visualise what I wanted it to look like, then another few months to execute the launch. As they say, the dreaming is the easy part, making that dream into reality is the hard part. That’s where we are today.
What does success look like for the company and how long will it take to get there?
It really depends on the industry, and geography one plays in. Sitting in the heart of SE Asia, I’m rather bullish about the potential of Luxury E-Commerce and the upside in the region. We have all the ingredients of a fast growing middle class, increasing spending power and a passion for luxury, as well as digital saviness,…we just need to ensure we can translate that to actual profitable growth from here.
If you were to give a start up entrepreneur three tips, what would they be?
1. Understand yourself
2. Understand your market
3. Make it happen
