INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
Lisa Enckell is a partner at Antler, an early-stage venture capital firm and startup generator. In Asia, where I work as a partner at an
early-stage VC firm, startups are regularly rolling out a minimum viable product (MVP) and then transacting on messaging apps.Companies like
shoe brand Portblue, AI e-commerce company Sorabel and Sama, an online recruitment platform for migrant workers, all started life using
WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger to communicate with customers, onboard users and raise brand awareness.For many years, WeChat has been the
default app for daily life and business in China
businesses could build apps inside WeChat
Now you never have to download any apps or go to a browser to access millions of services and businesses in WeChat.We now see a similar
Here, WhatsApp is the dominant social platform and, while it has not built the same infrastructure for building apps, startups have found a
way around that and now run many services on top of WhatsApp, validating with customers quickly and cheaply
These companies are not only mobile-first, but they are also WhatsApp-first.Sampingan, an Antler portfolio company founded here in
Singapore, provides an on-demand workforce to businesses in Indonesia
The first version of the product was on WhatsApp
months.Lisa Enckell is a partner at Antler, an early-stage venture capital firm and startup generator.
