Happy New Year! The Year of the Earth Pig is fast upon us and we've dug up some golden truffles for you!
We're kicking off 2019 with a double bill, inviting two pioneers to forecast the future of cryptocurrencies, Kris Marszalek, CEO of Crypto.com and Mike Kayamori, CEO of Liquid Global (Quoine), who's flying in specially from Tokyo.
Kris will share the consumer perspective and how Crypto.com is building out a wide range of convenient services that will incorporate cryptocurrencies into our daily lives.
With the lofty vision of "Cryptocurrency in Every Wallet", they have already launched the Crypto digital wallet and card app, the metal MCO Visa card (no annual fees) and recently announced Crypto Chain for transacting in any crypto, anywhere, for free. (Download their mobile app: iOS or Android).
Mike will share the trading side of the crypto business, providing insights on crypto exchanges and the role that blockchain plays in facilitating liquidity in this fast evolving digital economy.
NOTE: This event will be hosted in a super cool, new venue, the groovy ground floor of Hong Kong's latest co-working location, Spaces at Sun House, 181 Des Voeux Road Central. [Google Maps]
In the spirit of celebrating new beginnings, the entrance fee will be waived and the drinks will be generously sponsored by Crypto.com and Liquid Global.
Come discover the future of finance and ecommerce on Wednesday 16th January, 2019.
Their CEO summarising the "roller coaster ride" of 2018 with a teaser preview of what's to come in 2019 with Crypto Pay, by their CMO, Sean Rach:
And a talk given by Eric Anziani, SVP, Group Strategy and Bobby Bao, Co-Founder and Managing Director of Monaco addressed delegates at Consensus 2018 in New York City.
Formerly known as "Monaco", the company raised US$25 million from on ICP in June 2017. According to TechCrunch, around US$10M was used to acquire the "crypto.com" domain from Matt Blaze, a professor of computer and information science at the University of Pennsylvania who sits on the board of directors of the Tor Project.
Dive into this intro to Liquid Global:
And an "Ask Me Anything" (hashtag #AMA) session with Mike Kayamori:
The Christmas shopping season is fast upon us. Just when we've recovered from the mania of Double 11, Black Friday and Cyber Monday...it's now time for Web Wednesday!
For our 116th social mixer, we'll be talking flash sales and how a young couple of French entrepreneurs, Delphine Lefay and Diego Dultzin Lacoste, are shaking up the luxury retail industry in Asia.
Launched in Hong Kong in 2016, OnTheList has grown from a few pop-up shops to over 150 flash sales and partnerships with over 250 premium brands including Armani, Clarins, Diane Von Furstenberg, Ferragamo, Havaianas and Ted Baker. They have cleared over a million items of previously unsold inventory and have recently launched in Singapore, another shopping haven!
Topics will include:
best practices for enticing new members and keeping them coming back
how to use content and social media to built a loyal community of active shoppers
the value and challenges of online-to-offline commerce
how to expand into new markets without putting your business at risk
how to work with global brands that aren't as nimble as startups
effective ways to engage millennials
the role of blockchain in omni-channel retail
OnTheList will also be making a special offer to our members so make sure you bring a friend or two along in the spirit of Christmas!
Hosted at The Hive Sheung Wan, 3/F Hillier Building, 33-35 Hillier Street, Sheung Wan.
Doors open at 6:30pm, with the fireside chat starting at 7:15pm. The entrance fee of HK$100 gives you one complimentary drink and access to top quality networking. We will be donating 10% ofthe ticket sales to Operation Santa Claus.
Calling all multi-tasking, multi-channel messengers!
For our 115th Web Wednesday social mixer in Hong Kong, we have the pleasure of interviewing Angie Bell, Head of Asia Pacific & Japan for Twilio, the $7.4 billion company that helps apps and websites send texts and make calls.
Known for its simplicity of use and facilitating customer communication across voice, text, chat, and video, Twilio has recently boosted its unified offering by acquiring email marketing platform, SendGrid, for a handsome US$2bn.
We will be talking about the appeal of plug & play customer engagement tools in a world growingly dominated by chatbots, virtual assistants and voice recognition software and how rapidly growing startups are expanding their operations using their cloud-based offerings, such as Flex, Autopilot and Pay.
There is more to Twilio than meets the eye as they provide the "intelligent omni-channel plumbing" to the likes of Uber, Zendesk, Didi, Grab, Gojek, Bytedance, Dominos and Marks & Spencers.
Hosted at The Hive Sheung Wan, 3/F Hillier Building, 33-35 Hillier Street, Sheung Wan.
Doors open at 6:30pm with the hot seat interview kicking off at 7:15pm. An entrance fee of HK$100 gives you one complimentary drink, a captivating talk and high quality networking.
Mark your diaries for our next social mixer on 29th August. Our special guest speaker will be Matt Eaton, Group Publisher and CEO of Tap Media. We'll be talking about how to build and monetise a cross-media sports empire under his new mixed martial arts (MMA) brand, The Fight Nation. (find them on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Instagram).
Topics include tapping into the passion and excitement of live MMA fights, embracing streaming video, launching new pay per view models, addressing mobile viewing habits, cracking ecommerce opportunities and building fully engaged fan bases in an omni-channel world.
Doors open at 6:30pm with the hot seat interview kicking off at 7:15pm. An entrance fee of HK$100 gives you one complimentary drink, a captivating talk and high quality networking.
Venue is the Hive Sheung Wan, 3/F, Hillier Building, 33-35 Hillier Street, Sheung Wan, Hong Kong.
Matt is kindly offering our members a HK$200 discount for the inaugural Asia MMA Awards, to be held on 14th September at the Qube at PMQ 元創方. Use the code "webwednesday" when you register via the event website.
"To ICO or not to ICO?", that is the question! But was is the answer? (Watch the video at the end of this post for one possible answer).
There's so much buzz (and froth) around blockchain, crypto-currencies and initial coin offerings that we decided to debunk some of the myths by inviting Juwan Lee, the co-founder and Director of the Blockchain Centre of Hong Kong to the Web Wednesday hot seat.
Mark your diaries for our 113th social mixer at a cool new venue, the Hive Sheung Wan, 33 Hillier Street, Sheung Wan, Hong Kong. (Find on Google Maps).
After 30 years in the finance world, Juwan's primary enterprise is now NexChange, a innovation platform that builds ecosystems around fintech, insurtech, blockchain, AI, healthtech and smart cities.
Here's a short video about his network of finance professionals...
Come join us at the Hive, 33 Hillier Street, Sheung Wan on Wednesday 25th July, 2018. Doors open at 6:30pm, with the talk kicking off around 7:15pm. Entrance fee of HK$100 includes one standard drink. Happy hour drinks until 9pm.
Sign up and see who else is coming via our communities on Facebook (4,913 members), MeetUp (850 members) and LinkedIn (1,581 members).
We all know that ecommerce has shaken up the world of fashion retail and marketing. Oddly enough, we've returned to an era of celebrity, where each purchase decision is highly influenced by the people whom you follow and adore, dahling!
Our guest this month is Juliette Gimenez, Co-founder and CEO of Goxip, a Hong Kong-based online marketplace that uses image recognition to help buyers find their desired items. The like to describe themselves as "The Shoppable Instagram".
According to her LinkedIn profile, "Goxip is a mobile first application which allows users to snap a photo of any fashion item to find the exact or a range of similar ones with its image recognition technology. All products can be purchased instantly on the platform which Goxip offers over 2.5 million worldwide shipping items with 30,000+ designer brands for users to choose from.
Goxip is also a community for fashionista to create styling posts or follow others for fashion inspiration. Goxip is the shoppable Instagram which not only allows users to interact with each other socially on the platform, but also give them the power to purchase their desire outfits at the same time".
Here is Juliette with her co-founder, YC Lau, who is know for his success launching HK Golden, one of Hong Kong's first and more popular internet fora.
In February this year, Goxip secured US$5 million from a group of investors including Meitu美圖 and high society stars, Sabrina Ho and Chryseis Tan.
Along with her boundless energy, Juliette has a successful track record in ecommerce, driving multi-million dollars sales for uBuyiBuy (Hong Kong) and LivingSocial (Thailand) and was involved in Cdiscount Thailand’s IPO in November 2014.
As you can imagine, we have plenty to talk about!
Come join us at Levels on Wednesday 30th May, 2018. Doors open at 6:30pm, with the talk kicking off around 7:15pm. Entrance fee of HK$100 includes one standard drink. Happy hour drinks until 9pm.
Sign up and see who else is coming via our communities on Facebook (4,916 members), MeetUp (846 members) and LinkedIn (1,569 members).
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