🇸🇬🚀 Founder of The Week: Jason Leow - Founder of Jason’s Plugin for Carrd

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Here’s what we got for you:

• 🚀 Founder of the week - Jason Leow - Jason’s Plugin for Carrd

• ⛵ SEAppets - Lurkin Coffee is launching in Singapore

• 💰 SEA Deals

• 🖼️ AI Image of the day

• 🐣 Tweet of the day

Markets 📈

Founder of The Week 🚀

This week’s founder of the week is Jason Leow! 🇸🇬

🐣 What's your origin story?

I'm an indie solopreneur, running a portfolio of products and services. I consult for clients, but also build indie products – digital downloads, info products, SaaS. In an era of platform risk, diversity is intentional to mitigate that risk. I'm more of a designer, but I self-taught myself coding because I wanted to create internet products too!

🌍 Where are you from and where are you currently based?

From Singapore and still based here! 🇸🇬

🚀 What's your startup/side project?

I run a whole bunch of projects, but my current priority is Jason's Plugins For Carrd 

💻 Tech Stack 

Just plain vanilla Javascript, CSS and HTML. Sometimes Vue.js. All on website builder Carrd.co.

📣 Marketing Stack

Building in public on Twitter. Being active in Carrd communities on Facebook, Reddit, and Indie Hackers. Sponsored ads in indie newsletters. Launching free products. Helping people for free.

💰 How much are you currently making from your startup/side project? What's your MRR or ARR?

Around $500/month on average.

📦 What's one product or service you wish existed?

A mobile app that allowed me to route payment notifications from different payment platforms and allow me to customize the ringtone (cash register sound!) and plus confetti. 🤑🎉

🌊 What's your thought on SEA?

It's up and coming! There's a growing scene of founders/indie hackers/solopreneurs based here, and it's exciting to observe!

💡With all of your current knowledge and experience, if you were able to go back to being 20 yo again, what would you build?

I'd do the same thing.

SEAppets ⛵

1. HealthTech startup VinBrain has partnered with NVIDIA Inception, a global program that gives startups access to advanced computing resources. VinBrain will use NVIDIA's cutting-edge GPU technology to drive HealthTech innovation in Southeast Asia. Steven Truong, Chief Executive Officer of VinBrain will speak at NVIDIA GTC in 2023, discussing how to bring bigger impacts to improve patient outcomes and efficiency for doctors' workflows.

2. Luckin Coffee, a Chinese coffee chain previously in trouble is set to open locations in Singapore this month. They are also hiring staff for marketing, engineering and project management roles. The chain had previously been seen as China's answer to Starbucks but was fined USD $180 million for misreporting financial statements. In its latest report, Luckin reported a total net revenue of USD $1.9 billion with over 8,200 stores in China.

Back in 2020, Luckin Coffee falsely created over USD $300 million in sales through related parties and used fake expenses to conceal the fraud. This resulted in Luckin overstating its revenue in its publicly disclosed financial statements and raising over $864 million from investors.

3. MariBank, a digital banking service offered by Sea Group is launching in Singapore on an invite-only basis. It offers 2.5% interest per annum, no minimum deposit and users can make payments through PayNow or the app. Sea Group has also rolled out SeaBank in the Philippines and Indonesia, which offers higher interest earnings and payments through InstaPay and PESONet. MariBank is the third digital-only banking service to launch in Singapore, following Grab and Singtel's GXS Bank.

4. Maybank, Malaysia's largest bank has introduced an integrated automobile financing solution for electric and hybrid vehicles, with insurance, takaful coverage and charging privileges included. Maybank and Etiqa have also introduced insurance and takaful coverage for EV home chargers. Fitch Solutions predicts that EV sales in Malaysia will expand rapidly in 2023.

SEA Deals 💰

1. Bababos is an Indonesian-based raw material procurement platform that recently closed its pre-seed funding round with East Ventures as the lead investor. The platform helps SME manufacturers access top-quality raw materials and streamlines the procurement process. The company currently serves over 50 SME manufacturers, with some experiencing a two- to three-fold increase in business. East Ventures partner Melisa Irene sees Bababos as a real testament to tech-based solutions in the highly fragmented conventional industry.

2. Broom, an automotive SME solutions startup in Indonesia has recently secured USD $10 million in a pre-Series A funding round. The company provides financial solutions to auto dealers and its flagship service, Buyback, allows dealers to optimize inventory and access short-term working capital. Over the past year, the company has transacted over USD $300M in inventory and onboarded over 5,000 dealers. It plans to use the new funding to diversify product offerings and develop an intelligence model to assess car value. It also aims to double its credit facility from external lenders. The used car industry in Indonesia is a US$65 billion market.

3. Singapore-based agritech startup Agros has raised USD $2.7 million in pre-Series A funding to scale in existing markets, open a third country, strengthen its leadership team and develop an app to streamline the value chain. The company provides sustainable farming solutions to 18 million horticulture farmers in Asia, and has increased farmers' profits by more than USD $1.5 million and decreased up to 5,000 tons of CO2 emission.

4. 99 Group, a Singapore-based proptech company has raised USD $11 million in a Series C extension round led by OCBC NISP Ventura and existing investor Gaw Capital Partners. The company aims to make property buying and renting easier by providing smart filters and data analysis. Last July, Gaw Capital led a USD $52 million Series C and last September, 99 Group was in talks to acquire Propzy.

AI Image of The Day 🖼️

This is hell how can I help you

Tweet of The Day 🐣

If you’re reading this, I would like to say thank you because I know you didn’t say no to reading today’s issue🥹

That’s a wrap for today. See you all tomorrow! 👋

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