In brief
Mellow is a parent-child personal finance app founded by two Hong Kong post-90s entrepreneurs, Chester and Teresa, who were named to Forbes 30 Under 30 Asia 2020 from 3,500 nominations. The company has invested about HK$600,000 from Cyberport programmes, is not yet profitable, and plans to pursue B2B2C partnerships, work with parent KOLs, and expand to Taiwan, Tokyo and Singapore.
Living within one's means may sound like well-worn advice, yet many people fail to practise it and end up living paycheck to paycheck or even falling into debt. To help parents teach children basic financial knowledge and literacy early on, local post-90s founders Chester Sin (Chester) and Teresa Chan (Teresa) set up the startup Mellow and developed a parent-child personal finance app that helps children build lasting money-management habits. The two were also recently named to the Forbes 30 Under 30 Asia 2020 list, standing out from 3,500 nominations. Chester shared:
"Perhaps because this idea is relatively new, there is little like it in the market. So in future we also hope to bring the business to other parts of Asia-Pacific, such as Taiwan, Tokyo and Singapore, and gradually add other financial knowledge, including investment and insurance."
Launching Mellow to Nurture a Sense of Responsibility
As electronic payment tools have diversified, consumers can complete a payment with a simple tap of their phone. At the same time, this creates potential risks: a moment of carelessness and overspending could lead to mounting debt. They said the idea for the startup arose because, during university, they noticed friends around them starting to earn income but not managing it well, and because they saw no personal finance and digital payment solution in the local market that helped parents and children. Two years ago they joined the Cyberport University Partnership Programme (CUPP) to test the waters.
Since its founding, the company has received funding from Cyberport's CUPP and incubation programme, investing about HK$600,000 in total. He also admitted that the company is not yet profitable and will focus on seeking partners to launch a B2B2C solution. He said:
"We are focusing on seeking cooperation with platforms in areas such as education, finance, retail and e-commerce. We hope to become profitable in as little as one year."
Although the recent COVID-19 pandemic has brought operations in many industries to a halt, they said their business has not been greatly affected. Recently, in response to school suspensions, they also launched various online activities and promotions to attract users. For example, last month they partnered with MarcoPolo Learning to launch a STEAM learning course, and ran a promotional campaign with Donut Kids Club, part of New World's portfolio.
Virtual Diamond Points Replace Cash Rewards
"We found that parents in Hong Kong are relatively conservative compared with those elsewhere, so when designing the app we came up with the idea of using virtual diamond points instead of money."
Plans to Partner with KOLs to Share Financial Content
In addition, although the idea is innovative enough, they pointed out that they still need to work hard on building brand awareness. They believe digital channels are more effective for promotion, so in future they will partner with parent KOLs and parenting online forums such as Baby Kingdom, and share content on teaching money management on social media, to build awareness.
Actively Entering Competitions to Gain Exposure and Business Opportunities
In fact, they have repeatedly entered various competitions in the past, with the aim of gaining exposure in the market and opening up opportunities for cooperation with companies. Examples include the Zurich Innovation Championship 2020 and the 2019 Jumpstarter global entrepreneurship competition organised by the Alibaba Entrepreneurs Fund. Drawing on their experience of engaging with different industries through these competitions, he said that understanding a company's needs is very important; for example, one should make sure the proposed solution meets its KPI (key performance indicator) targets.
Original article: https://bit.ly/2NbgSCY