Starting late 2016, I joined a start up and began my 18 months’ journey realizing the vision of a local business owner, who would like to reach Asian customers online all over the world, and help other business as well.
We were building a online shopping experience, initially targeting local Asian community in Australia, and possibly expanding to the global Asian community in the future.
The platform support the sales of coupons which can be redeem at shops, everyday items from 2 dollar shops, fresh produces like meat and egg. We implemented solutions to place orders directly to restaurants. We enabled concert ticket sales where users can pick the seat. The platform was integrated with OptimoRoute to support possible logistic. There was also an internal wallet system, a redeem code generator, pdf generator and a CMS to publish news. We integrated payments from WeChat, Aplipay, RoyalPay, Paypal, Eway, CBA direct credit card as well as Hcash (a crypto back then). And there is supports for email marketing, SMS notification Not to mention the entire site is optimised and closely integrated with social media WeChat to improve customer engagement.
Like all other start-ups, there was the rush to flush out as much features as possible. As you can see every items listed above has at least one major competitor online already. It is really ambitious trying to combine all them together.
Apart from software development, I also managed a dedicated server on digital pacific, which later migrated to Ali Cloud. And I was constantly interviewing junior team member.
After 18 month into the project. We came to a realisation that the scope had grown too big and we seem to have lost the original goal. Without a proof in the market or significant investment. We could not do this forever.
What I learn from it
If you ever hear someone say “I don’t know what I want”. It usually means subconsciously he wants too much if not everything. Work hard is important, so does work smart.