Turning A Crisis Into An Opportunity

I once read that the most successful people are those that are able to turn a crisis into an opportunity. This can be applied to one’s business, or even to one’s personal life!

I try to always think how I can turn a crisis I’m facing into an opportunity and I can tell you it’s not always the easiest thing to do. But today I present to you a company that managed to do this successfully!

The company in question is Scoot. For my non-Singaporean readers who aren’t aware, Scoot is a relatively new budget airline company trying to break into an already very crowded and competitive budget airline market.

The other party in today’s story is 9GAG Singapore; a Singaporean version of the popular 9GAG.

This is a brief outline of what happened:

1) North Korean announces that they will be attacking South Korea

2) Scoot announces new cheap ticket prices to Seoul (South Korea) – Crisis to Opportunity Case 1

3) 9GAG Singapore posts a meme about it to its 119,335 Facebook followers stating that Scoot is sending people to their death (rephrased and interpreted)

4) Scoot replies with a level headed, composed and well thought out statement and even decided to give the 9GAG Singapore admin a free ticket from Seoul to Singapore. In addition they utilized 9Gag Singapore’s large reach to promote the selling of more tickets to Seoul by asking people to state reasons why they should also receive free tickets from Scoot – Crisis to Opportunity Case 2

I’m not sure if any of you are as impressed as I am but personally when I saw this I was so proud of Scoot for coming up with such a great ‘retort’!

If they had just left it as it is, the general impression of Scoot would have remained a negative one and this might affect the brand image in the long run.

But by doing what they did, it showed the light hearted and even fun side of Scoot which brings about positive associations with the company. This would definitely be good for their branding, and heck, it might even make more people want to apply to work in Scoot!

And in this brief encounter, I am sensing some similarities between Scoot and the famous tongue-in-cheek Virgin brand; which is a really good direction to head in! Even their description about themselves on their website is congruent with their actions; and also similar to Virgin – “We’re an airline for the young, the young-at-heart and the value seeking.”

So kudos to Scoot for their outstanding work over the long Easter weekend!

A few things I have learned:

1) In this age of social media, don’t just monitor what your competitors say about you, monitor what everyone says about you

2) Always keep calm and composed in business (and life) when faced with adversity or crises.

3) Bad press is also good press (if you’re able to work your way around it!)

(Have something to add on? Just leave a comment and I’ll be happy to read it! Thanks!)

Starting Small Starting Lean

I have always been a fan of starting up a company with as little financing as possible.

There are many pros and cons of this approach. Some argue that you need money to make money (some also believe in the saying “high risk high return”). There is validity in this statement but I feel that there are many other opportunities and means to start a business on the lean. I am one clear example (not meaning to brag but I’m just saying there ARE people who are able to start a business without or with very little money).

I started my nail polish retail push-cart business with absolutely zero dollars and starting making money from the very first day I opened my push-cart. How I did it will be another story for another day but for now I would like to talk about something that really helped to validate my decision to start small and start lean.

For Christmas last year I received a book from a family member. It was a book that had caught my eye while walking past a bookshop while on the way to my gate at the airport where my plane was soon departing so I didn’t have the time to browse through it. But caught my eye it did!

It’s called “The $100 Startup” by Chris Guillbeau.

As you can probably already guess, the book is about starting a business with $100 or less. It’s filled with cases of real life people who are more or less accidental entrepreneurs, as the author puts it.

Some start out because of pure passion; some start out because they realized they have a particular skill to do something that people are willing to pay them for; while others just notice a problem or gap in the market and decide that they can fill it.

I’ve read the book so I can safely say that none of the people mentioned are “superstar entrepreneurs” like Mark Zuckerberg, Sir Richard Branson, Larry Page, or even Henry Ford for the matter. They are just normal, everyday people very much like you and I, really. I don’t mean that as a bad thing; but rather I think it’s very very very inspiring for anyone and everyone who’s ever thought of quitting a job they hate, and doing something they love every single day. Oh and these entrepreneurs aren’t your struggling-to-make-ends-meet kind of entrepreneurs. These guys are earning at least $50,000 – $100,000 annually! (Some do it full time while others are doing it on the sides on top of a day job that they already love so there was no reason to leave the job in the first place).

So if you have been thinking about being an entrepreneur for a long time, I suggest you stop procrastinating and get on your feet just like these guys did!

(Have something to add on? Just leave a comment and I’ll be happy to read it! Thanks!)

In-LINE with WhatsApp

Recently it was announced that WhatsApp would start charging a fee for new users who wanted to download and use its services. It has always been a struggle for free apps to suddenly start charging. Would their users value their service enough to want to pay for it now? Would a competitor come along offering the same service for free and reduce them to redundancy? These and many more questions are definitely on the minds of the guys at WhatsApp for sure. But I’m not here to talk about whether or not they will be successful in turning their free app into a huge profit making venture. What I’m going to talk about today is LINE.

Interestingly I only found out about Line two days ago while out running with a friend and co-founder of Intraix. They have recently expanded successfully into Japan through a Japanese partner and whether by choice or necessity, have had to download Line!

So what exactly IS Line? In a nutshell, it’s WhatsApp with uber cute emoticons! Think cute anime bear waving at you when you want to say ‘bye’. I think that is sufficient to spur your imagination!

The interesting thing is that users have to PAY to download a pack of ‘stickers’. Last i heard it’s about $12-$15 for a pack of stickers. Not bad value for money I must admit!

It’s doing really well in Japan, Taiwan and even China and if you’re a startup doing well in these three countries, I think you’d be able to sleep very comfortably at night.

Imagine if WhatsApp had thought up of this business model from the start! They wouldn’t even have to worry about charging a fee to download their app anymore.

I think there are a few key lessons we can learn here:

1) It’s not wrong to want to build up your user base by giving out free apps for download. But always make sure you can create a demand for something you can add on as a value add that your users will be more than willing to pay for.

2) Never underestimate Asians’ willingness to pay for something cute and adorable (just for jokes guys no Asian hatin’ here!)

(Have something to add on? Just leave a comment and I’ll be happy to read it! Thanks!)