AB0601 Communication Management Fundamentals
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InnoTekStart 2017
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InnoTekAsia is a digital media company whose mission is to help startups in Asia promote
their new ventures in technological applications and innovation. Through a website which it
hosts, InnoTekAsia features tech and/or startup events in Asia. Contributions on news and
events on this website are from journalists with a keen interest in writing tech news. These
journalists are employed by InnoTekAsia as bloggers.
Besides writing articles of interest for startups, InnoTekAsia’s team of bloggers also
organises events which facilitate networking between startups and investors. An
increasingly popular event organised by InnoTekAsia is InnoTekStart, a conference to
showcase product-ready tech startups and to create networking opportunities among
startups, investors
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, and experienced entrepreneurs.
Since the first InnoTekStart in 2014, these conferences have been held twice a year. Last
year, one of the two InnoTekStart conferences was held in Singapore, in Marina Bay Sands.
More than 4000 attendees from 55 countries came, 80 world-class speakers took centre
stage and more than 400 investors participated in the event.
This year’s InnoTekStart, from 16 – 17 May 2017, will again be held in Singapore, this time at
the Suntec City Convention Centre. Planning for the conference began in September 2016.
3 January 2017
Lynn Lee is a Programme Manager in charge of organising networking sessions among
startups, investors and experienced entrepreneurs. Her boss, Juniper Koh, has asked her to
plan a new event for the networking sessions. Lynn meets with her team, which includes an
intern from Nanyang Business School.
Lynn: Let’s get started. Last year, we received excellent ratings on the conference
programme and the networking sessions. Our Roundtable which provided a small
and cosy setting for discussions and interactions amongst the startup community
was well-received. The Night Crawls – where startups, investors and entrepreneurs
hangout after a day’s event – were also very popular. Boss has asked us to continue
with our present slew of events, but he also wants us to come up with a new event
to help startups meet the “right” investors.
Tony: It is indeed tough for startups to meet the “right” investors in a conference of such a
huge size. For one, where do they start? And, how do they know who to approach?
May: I thought of a cool way for startups and investors to meet and size up each other’s
projects and interests. Organise it like “speed dating”. Hopefully, they can find a
good match through such an event!
Kris: You mean let startups do a quick pitch
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to the investors within a time limit?
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This case-scenario is largely fictitious, although details have been inspired by real-life conferences, and is
adapted from an earlier case-scenario by Dr Constance Wee.
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Investors may include venture capitalists, ‘angel investors’ who are willing to consider putting in ‘seed capital’
to help fund startups.
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A ‘pitch’ is a persuasive oral presentation where presenters aim to ‘sell’ their ideas to the audience, hoping
that a deal is clinched.
AB0601 Communication Management Fundamentals
Lynn: Yeah! That will really be cool. I am sure Juniper will buy that. How should this “speed
dating” be run? What shall we call the session?
May: How about Startup Investor Speed Date? We can arrange for a group of investors to
station themselves at an exclusive booth so that a maximum of 6 startups at a time
can take their turn to pitch their ideas to them. Of course, we will have to set up
several booths as we expect many investors and startups to be interested in this
event.
Ann: How about no more than 5 minutes for each pitch? And perhaps another 5 minutes
for Q&A between startups and investors?
Lynn: Any criteria the startups should meet before they can meet the investors to increase
the chances of a good match?
Tony: Many investors are interested in startups with more than $200,000 in annual sales.
And these startups should also be looking to expand their business at least two-fold
in 2 years.
Kris: And to help startups decide which investors they want to “date”, we will need to
make available to them the investors’ business interests.
May: Right. We need investors to register their interest in “dating” a startup, and to tell us
their business interests. Perhaps we should prepare a conference booklet which lists
the investors and their business interests? From the booklet, startups can choose an
investor to “date”.
Lynn: Then, when the startups and investors meet, hopefully they can size each other up
