09/02/2014
I met Mike Loh in LKF. The choice of meeting is telling us a lot about him. He is a dynamic, passionate and interesting native Singaporean who was heavily involved in technology business for more than 10 years, primarily in business development and commercialisation. He co-founded 2 companies ingress.me and s-led
Can you tell me more about yourself?
I have been working for HK and Singapore government for 2 to 3 years; I have been helping start-up to find the right resources. Just a tenth of tech technologies go out of the ground. It is important to thelp them.
Right now my main focus is to run “Ingress me”. We started with the passion to share with people how to live happily. It is a very interesting situation; there is just little competition because the profit is very low. Companies are willing to pay but individuals are not. For the past 2 years we were targeting individuals and now we are going to target companies as well. We still want to pursue with individuals as we have faith in it.
Which kind of services are you providing with Ingress.me?
It is all about personal development. It is a bit like seeing a psychologist. We help people understand what is blocking them to reach their maximums and what can reduce their confidence or self-image. Our certified trainers are able to coach our clients and give them the confidence to live and open up their mind.
What are the strengths of ingress-me?
We are offering what companies cannot give to their employees: a place to share all their thoughts. Companies are doing a lot of in house activities to help their employees to reach a happiness status. However employees are not feeling confident enough to share their thoughts in this kind of situation. Therefore ingress me lower the barriers and allow people to fully share their thoughts with certified coaches that have nothing to do with the company.
What is the future of the personal development industry?
For personal development, the trend is going much faster in china than Hong Kong. In HK it is very new although the Chinese tradition embraces the philosophy of “personal development”. Our method is focused on western ideologies. Corporate are asking for this kind of services. I believe we are on the right path.
You are also running a tech company, could you tell me more about it?
Absolutely, the other one is a tech company called “s-led”. We are doing a wireless manufacture control. The first product is to control the lightings. There is a huge market. The whole development has been relocated to Shenzen because it is cheaper, the engineers are more motivated and the supply chain is more in depth. We are a B2B business and a supply chain can encompasses 2 to 3 manufactures before selling the product to the final clients.
The concept of 'LightID' is very similar to 'RFID', other than that we use line-of-sight light technologies to replace wireless RF.
'LightID' system begins with a transmitter module. The transmitter module instructs the light device (whether visible light or invisible light) to broadcast a unique string of codes, which we typically identify as "LocationID". A receiver module picks up the "LocationID" whenever it is near a transmitter, and informs immediately the 'LightID' system of its current location.
What can you tell us about engineers in Hong-Kong?
One of the problems in Hong Kong with engineers is the high level of expenses that you need to pay to have an experienced engineer who usually have a family. What you need to know regarding engineer in HK and Singapore is that people mainly chose this path because it is a backup for them. It is often their last choice when they choose a bachelor degree. They are not really interested about it. In this part of the world only 30% of the engineers have the passion of the job. Seeing as engineers are treated decently, it is the reason they are choosing this path. According to me there is a huge difference between HK and Singapore engineers with European engineers. In Europe, engineers are very different I can feel they are passionate and they love their job.
What are S-Led' strengths?
We are targeting local manufactures, we are close to them and we build strong relationships. Therefore we know what they need and what they want.
'LightID' technology excels in Indoor Tracking with a few distinct advantages:
What is the future of the lighting industry?
Lighting is definitely in the increase right now. It is still in the early adoption stage because costs are high. There are a lot of merger acquisitions in China and Taiwan and the whole industry is changing. The costs will decrease in the next few years. Lighting is also a good entry for smartphones. We hope lighting will change the way we use our smartphones.
You are also running an association called StartUp Resources, How did you decide to create it?
It was back at the time when I was setting up my first company, I was facing the problem of finding resources, partners, and suppliers. One of the problems I faced was to find good designers. I worked with a very small company (8 to 10 people) and we couldn’t get what we wanted because they didn’t spend enough time with us, we are too small for them and they preferred to spend more time with bigger clients. The attention was too weak. Therefore, in the case the purpose of the association was to find the right people who have the passion to design and help people.
We are also dealing with investment and investors through the association. It is important to make good matches between investors and entrepreneurs in terms of return on investment and mindset.
The general idea is to provide all kind of resources for start-ups Hong Kong is just starting to develop its software industry and many people from the US are coming in HK. This situation attracts many investors and people from different background.
website of the Start-Up Resources meetup: http://www.meetup.com/StartupResources/
I met Mike Loh in LKF. The choice of meeting is telling us a lot about him. He is a dynamic, passionate and interesting native Singaporean who was heavily involved in technology business for more than 10 years, primarily in business development and commercialisation. He co-founded 2 companies ingress.me and s-led
Can you tell me more about yourself?
I have been working for HK and Singapore government for 2 to 3 years; I have been helping start-up to find the right resources. Just a tenth of tech technologies go out of the ground. It is important to thelp them.
Right now my main focus is to run “Ingress me”. We started with the passion to share with people how to live happily. It is a very interesting situation; there is just little competition because the profit is very low. Companies are willing to pay but individuals are not. For the past 2 years we were targeting individuals and now we are going to target companies as well. We still want to pursue with individuals as we have faith in it.
Which kind of services are you providing with Ingress.me?
It is all about personal development. It is a bit like seeing a psychologist. We help people understand what is blocking them to reach their maximums and what can reduce their confidence or self-image. Our certified trainers are able to coach our clients and give them the confidence to live and open up their mind.
What are the strengths of ingress-me?
We are offering what companies cannot give to their employees: a place to share all their thoughts. Companies are doing a lot of in house activities to help their employees to reach a happiness status. However employees are not feeling confident enough to share their thoughts in this kind of situation. Therefore ingress me lower the barriers and allow people to fully share their thoughts with certified coaches that have nothing to do with the company.
What is the future of the personal development industry?
For personal development, the trend is going much faster in china than Hong Kong. In HK it is very new although the Chinese tradition embraces the philosophy of “personal development”. Our method is focused on western ideologies. Corporate are asking for this kind of services. I believe we are on the right path.
You are also running a tech company, could you tell me more about it?
Absolutely, the other one is a tech company called “s-led”. We are doing a wireless manufacture control. The first product is to control the lightings. There is a huge market. The whole development has been relocated to Shenzen because it is cheaper, the engineers are more motivated and the supply chain is more in depth. We are a B2B business and a supply chain can encompasses 2 to 3 manufactures before selling the product to the final clients.
The concept of 'LightID' is very similar to 'RFID', other than that we use line-of-sight light technologies to replace wireless RF.
'LightID' system begins with a transmitter module. The transmitter module instructs the light device (whether visible light or invisible light) to broadcast a unique string of codes, which we typically identify as "LocationID". A receiver module picks up the "LocationID" whenever it is near a transmitter, and informs immediately the 'LightID' system of its current location.
What can you tell us about engineers in Hong-Kong?
One of the problems in Hong Kong with engineers is the high level of expenses that you need to pay to have an experienced engineer who usually have a family. What you need to know regarding engineer in HK and Singapore is that people mainly chose this path because it is a backup for them. It is often their last choice when they choose a bachelor degree. They are not really interested about it. In this part of the world only 30% of the engineers have the passion of the job. Seeing as engineers are treated decently, it is the reason they are choosing this path. According to me there is a huge difference between HK and Singapore engineers with European engineers. In Europe, engineers are very different I can feel they are passionate and they love their job.
What are S-Led' strengths?
We are targeting local manufactures, we are close to them and we build strong relationships. Therefore we know what they need and what they want.
'LightID' technology excels in Indoor Tracking with a few distinct advantages:
- Precise accuracy of 30-150cm, or 1-5ft diameter
- High reliability with zero RF interference
- Easy integration with existing IR cameras and LED lamps
What is the future of the lighting industry?
Lighting is definitely in the increase right now. It is still in the early adoption stage because costs are high. There are a lot of merger acquisitions in China and Taiwan and the whole industry is changing. The costs will decrease in the next few years. Lighting is also a good entry for smartphones. We hope lighting will change the way we use our smartphones.
You are also running an association called StartUp Resources, How did you decide to create it?
It was back at the time when I was setting up my first company, I was facing the problem of finding resources, partners, and suppliers. One of the problems I faced was to find good designers. I worked with a very small company (8 to 10 people) and we couldn’t get what we wanted because they didn’t spend enough time with us, we are too small for them and they preferred to spend more time with bigger clients. The attention was too weak. Therefore, in the case the purpose of the association was to find the right people who have the passion to design and help people.
We are also dealing with investment and investors through the association. It is important to make good matches between investors and entrepreneurs in terms of return on investment and mindset.
The general idea is to provide all kind of resources for start-ups Hong Kong is just starting to develop its software industry and many people from the US are coming in HK. This situation attracts many investors and people from different background.
website of the Start-Up Resources meetup: http://www.meetup.com/StartupResources/