Our Top Startup Ideas (Part 2)

Following on from our previous post on startup ideas in Myanmar, we’re releasing a second list. This list focuses on more technology-intensive, speculative ideas, particularly for the B2B sector. B2B startups typically face higher barriers to entry than B2C ones, but can be rewarded with stickier customers. Businesses aren’t easy to win and it can take months to get one client, but once onboard they tend to need a reason to switch provider, rather than to stay. Consumers, on the other hand find it much easier to try new solutions and are therefore often harder to keep hold of.  

In neighbouring India, there has been a huge rise in B2B startups, a lot of which have focussed on enterprise software, such as Freshworks which last year made unicorn status when it raised $100m at a $1.5bn valuation. Myanmar is still a way from seeing its first unicorn, as we discussed in an earlier blog, but we’re definitely seeing innovation in the B2B space - such as Mote Poh, which is redefining ways in which companies recognise and reward their staff.

So without further ado, here are our top five speculative B2B tech startup ideas. Same caveat as last time we wrote one of these posts: we haven’t tested or researched these ideas beyond lunch chats and a cursory Google, so try them at your own risk (but if you do try any of them, tell us!).

• Rental platform for B2B equipment: The success of WeWork has proven that the sharing economy can be extended to businesses. Capital spending and asset utilisation in Myanmar is low, and we think there’s room for a general-purpose B2B asset sharing platform. We’re thinking office space, construction machinery, drones and other capital-intensive items. As with all businesses in Myanmar, a key challenge will be establishing trust. Shoutout to Tun Yat for pioneering this kind of model in the farm machinery sector. ​ ​

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• Cheap cloud-based home camera systems: Security is big business in Myanmar, but is currently mostly offline and inefficient. Imagine a startup selling super cheap (<$100) home camera systems that are robust to power and internet cuts, support remote locking and detect suspicious behaviour. While this might start out as simply reselling systems from China, there is considerable scope to overlay intelligent software services on top. You could even tie in relationships with e-commerce platforms, who would love to improve the efficiency of their delivery services. ​

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• Team Building in a big (data) Box: Organising team building is hard work for the uninitiated and large companies often pay big bucks for consultants to take on the burden. We think there could be scope for team building in a box - a literal box of activities and games geared around team building for your company. By collecting data from managers and team members alike, AI could be fed to predict the right box combo for different company-types or even particular issues at work. Such a product could also open up new avenues to support corporates with larger HR strategies in the future. ​

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• Tactile Pipeline and Cloud CRM: This is one for the garage enthusiasts. Lots of teams use sales pipeline software, but even the most diligent salespeople can fall down when it comes to data entry. Imagine if there was an interactive board that featured small units which represented deals. Moving it on the board would move it on the cloud-based software and voice to text could enable easily adding notes to the deal during sales meetings. We think this might make sales meetings more interactive and prompt questions about stuck deals, helping companies sell more. The technology itself wouldn’t need to be complex, but a smart approach would be needed to balance size, function and of course cost. ​

• Gamified Employee Onboarding Platform: Gamification is an undeniably powerful tool. Whether it's making you put more coins in the slot machine in Vegas, or getting you to learn a new language, leveraging the psychology of gaming and rewards has its payoffs. Added to that, employee turnover is a large expense (in Myanmar and elsewhere) and often occurs in the first few months of staff onboarding. We think there could be an exciting role for gamifying the onboarding process inside a digital platform. On-boarding is more specific than say, “Sales Training 101”, but modular packages could help serve multiple businesses needs. If successful, the startup could then use the gamification strategies for other staff training - like sales training 101! The key here would be starting small with a few key clients and building a great product.

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Think we missed something, or our ideas are genius, or completely mad? Write us at hello@eme.asia and tell us why.