JAN WONG is one of those serial entrepreneurs who are bursting with too many ideas. The 27-year-old IT graduate has transformed some of his concepts into web and mobile-based products, and is set to launch his latest offering by year-end.

Wong is co-founder of OpenMinds Resources Sdn Bhd, a Subang-based a digital marketing consultancy firm whose core business involves leveraging a brand’s online presence. At the back-end, it boasts a team of engineers to work on in-house products.

The firm will launch a food and beverage-related app in December called Lunch Time. Wong is out to give existing apps a run for their money by giving the user a different experience when it comes to answering that age-old question — where to makan?

It is a very important Malaysian dilemma, he tells #edGY, and he hopes to help solve it when the app rolls out.

Monetising a lunchtime predicament

Deciding where to eat, many would say, is a problem especially during lunch hour. With so many choices, it’s, ironically, harder to decide on a restaurant.

Wong and his team designed a mobile app called Lunch Time that matches users’ eating preferences to restaurants nearby. How is the app — soon to be available on iOS and Android mobile devices — different from a host of other food and beverage apps currently on the market?

Wong explains that most of the available apps, such as Foodpanda and Foursquare, use a geolocation method. These apps outline a radius around the user and list the restaurants available — a system, he argues, that does not really solve the problem of telling you where to eat.

LunchTime is neither a restaurant directory nor a listing, but is designed to learn from users’ interactions over a period of time.

“Say every day, you turn down fast-food restaurants, the app will no longer suggest fast-food chains to you. The more you interact with it, the more it understands your eating behaviour,” he explains.

“What we’re trying to achieve is that the moment you launch the app, it’ll immediately give you one suggestion of where to go. You will then tell it whether you agree. If you don’t agree, the app will offer the next best suggestion.”

LunchTime also offers a unique social feature to facilitate democratic decision-making within a group of users, he adds.  The app will match each user’s preference to decide which restaurant is best for everyone within that group.

He explains: “Let’s say it’s your first day of college. You don’t know whether your new friend is a vegan but, say everyone is using Lunch Time, the app will detect a vegan in the group and so, non-vegan places will be filtered. Basically, this app does all the thinking and filtering without you doing anything based on individual preferences and we carry that into a group environment.”

Wong reveals that RM50,000 was invested in the first phase to kick-start Lunch Time, and that monetisation plans will only happen in the third phase.

“Monetising will come in a way where we will allow merchants to have very targeted ad models rather than go on a mass advertising approach,” he says.

Most available food and beverage apps advertise to the masses, he says. Similar to Facebook’s targeted advertising system, Lunch Time will allow merchants to advertise to targeted users via the app.

“They will have greater interaction with the users through targeted advertising models rather than a mass-advertising approach. We can target people like, let’s say, we know for sure that Jan comes to Cossains (Coffee House) on weekdays at 3pm. We can do it in a way that only Jan receives this offer at 3pm the next time he comes,” he explains.

“In a listing or directory format, most merchants, or rather the restaurants, are basically blindly advertising. Lunch Time is targeted, customised and personalised.”
 
Beyond Lunch Time

Wong has been on his journey as an entrepreneur over the past decade. His foray into the start-up world began at 17 when he founded Genesis, then a small-time data-recovery business he successfully operated from his college room that is still running today.

After that, he tried and tested his skills and luck on other ideas, including a T-shirt label company and a Facebook marketing app. Some took off but he admits it was difficult letting go of the businesses that didn’t work as well as he hoped.

In 2012, Wong hit a home run with OpenMinds Resources. It was a timely opportunity as brands began to realise the importance of strategic social media planning.

He reveals that the business was funded with the firm’s first pay cheque. “I’m glad we managed to pull it off! We made a profit from day one in that sense,” he smiles.

“Our client’s first pay cheque to us was the amount we required to open a bank account. That’s how we started, there was no funding whatsoever; it started with that cheque!”

He firmly believes that one can start anything without have to chase for funding, as long as one is clever and strategic about it. While many start-ups usually aim to break even after their third year, Wong admits he was surprised by the success of OpenMinds Resources before even the first year was up.

“To be honest, many of us weren’t expecting to reach that kind of revenue and profit within the first year and second year. Within the first quarter, we made the same amount of money as the first year, so things are really moving,” he says.

“Sometimes when I look at our portfolio, it makes me wonder why such brands believe in us. That shows our value and what we can offer, which was such a boost to all of us.”

At present, Wong and his team are hustling to launch Lunch Time by year-end. At the same time, they are working on a cloud marketing app they aim to unveil next year.

He says there is a need to hire more talent to take the company to greater heights.

“Projects are coming and we have many plans, even internally. I think there are about four to five on the back burner, waiting for resources to be freed up to work on them. Everybody is eager to work on these projects … we are battling on our own time to work on them.”

Looking forward, he says his goal for the company is to work on funding local start-ups. His enthusiasm for bringing ideas to life has led him to allocate some resources to fund and support other local start-ups.

“We are passionate about curating new ideas and helping other people launch applications. That is what we want to achieve,” he says.

“I’m very tech-driven but I’m building up to explore other things in the industry. Food and beverage seems interesting now and Lunch Time is half a foot in the door just to see how it’s like.”

From the looks of it, Wong won’t be slowing down anytime soon.

This article first appeared in #edGY, The Edge Malaysia Weekly, on October 20 - 26, 2014.

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