Currently onstage now is the founder of Thailand’s e-commerce site Tarad.com, Pawoot Pongvitayapanu or Pom. Interviewed by Willis Wee, Pom talks about the lessons he learned after Japan-based e-commerce giant Rakuten bought a majority stake of Tarad in 2009.
#15:02: Tarad is a marketplace and it was started in 2001, and it was the worst time because Thailand was having a crisis then.
#15:05: Pom said that Rakuten bought majority stake on Tarad for US$ 3 million based on newspaper reports. After working with Rakuten, everything has to be in numbers, everything has to be punctual. We have morning meeting, each team has daily communication, and every person has to submit report every day.
#15:07: KPI tree is important, we break down our target numbers like traffic and buyer convertion. Each KPI belongs to each department, and each department’s KPI is broken down to each person.
#15:09: You can download Pom’s KPI spreadsheet through his personal website Pawoot.com. But it needs some translation effort.
#15:12: Most people work for money, but if you’re working for another reason which is bigger like to empower the society, it is better. Rakuten made us believe that we can grow and change the lives of the society and country. It is important to us. Before getting acquired, Pom didn’t have that way of thinking.
This is a part of our coverage of Startup Asia Singapore 2013, our event running on April 4 and 5. For all our newest Startup Arena pitches, see here. You can follow along on Twitter at @techinasia, and on our Facebook page.
Coffee Chat: Our argument after receiving Rakuten taught me (live blog)