Inside Successful ‘Cloud for Startups’ Event with AWS

After Jerome shared some of the best practices in the Southeast Asian region, three prestigious startup founders explained the most pressing roadblocks they are currently undergoing in terms of innovation.

Don Pansacola of Nextpay used the music industry and the heydays of MTV as an analogy to answer this question. He expressed that technology has enabled the quicker setting up, scaling and launching of businesses – all of which wouldn’t have been possible years ago because of the technical barriers to reach the minimum level of necessities required to put up a fintech. The developments on the cloud have gifted these startups a more cost-effective alternative to launching. This is a feat that would have been impossible three years ago. But like the music scene, this can also come at a cost for startups – as it can be crowded. Don then poses the question, how does one establish differentiation?

Joshua briefly touched on the reality of Filipino resilience with the flooding, typhoon, and earthquake Filipinos were subdued under in a year. We’ve done a lot of things and coped with ways to bounce back. He aims to highlight key principles in innovation: putting in the solution and having a problem-solving mindset. Just like with natural causes, one needs to utilize a solution-seller mindset. How will you be able to solve a situation and not dwell on the problem itself? This is where bringing in the fundamentals come to play. What key infrastructures are you planning to implement? Joshua shares that a start up can focus on that first. After all, identifying the process involved and laying the footprint on the mechanisms on how business should be run is important. Second, the key people or stakeholders and third, the technology.

Serge painted us a picture of how the COVID education setup would be for the learners if they were only to rely on data for asynchronous learning. As their research suggests this will be detrimental for both teachers and students. Utilizing the cloud has enabled them and their clients to analyze the content passionately and to cater to more institutions. Serge strongly suggested that had they stuck with their previous understanding, they could have lost opportunities that could have come their way. He also shared the sentiments of Don and Joshua on the growing startup community – consulting with an expert earlier could have produced a different situation for most startups. It’s part of the learning. If he were to start his business again, he would have consulted as many experts as early as he can.