Name: Nicholas Lim, Co-founder & CEO, 25yo, Singaporean
Technopreneur Circle member: Since June 2019
Company: Outside Technologies Pte Ltd (InfoTech)
Website: https://outsideapp.co
The company under 20 words:
A community tasking app that makes it fun and easy for users to help each other with daily inconveniences.
How has COVID-19 impacted the company / business?
For us, Outside has always been a community centric app. Upon catching wind of the entire COVID19 situation, we knew it was time for us to play our part. Outside App is a community tasking platform that can best add value by connecting users to people nearby who need help with daily inconveniences. In order to better connect these individuals and opportunities, we decided to cut our commission charge and provide our business services for free.
Since the announcement for the Circuit Breaker measures, we have facilitated hundreds of tasks within communities, getting users their meals, groceries, necessities and even assisting a taxi uncle with his tax filing. We have since been recognized and reflected on the official #SGUnited and #SGStrong sites and we are still working on improvements to our app based on feedback from our users. We believe we can create a stronger and more collaborative Singapore by connecting more people to our community.
What are some of the adjustments you had to make in order to minimize disruptions?
When we work together in a physical space, our team usually does weekly standups on Mondays and a weekly review/report at the end of the week.
On the first week of CB, the team was honestly struggling to figure out how to better work, communicate and report our progress as the entire WFH structure is pretty foreign to us.
After discussing and testing, we implemented daily standups every morning before we start work – this is done to ensure that we can sync up and understand what each other is doing while ensuring that everyone is motivated and moving in the right direction. It has been working very well for us since!
Name one technology / platform which you find useful in these times and why?
Video (conference) calls! In times when we are isolating ourselves, it really feels a lot better and familiar to be able to see the party you are talking to. I honestly didn’t appreciate this as much as I was pretty used to meeting people physically, but the video calls I’ve been on, including webinars, have been very effective and I’m really glad technology platforms like this has become very accessible for most of us. The ability to conference call helped our team communicate a lot better during our check-ins and daily standups!
Are you currently working from home? If so, how has it been in terms of efficiency?
Yes — I’m more efficient! Mostly due to the fact that there is essentially ~3 hours of travel time I’m gaining back daily. This allows me to rest more, learn more and also do more when it’s needed!
Any shout-outs / rants you would like to add on:
Let’s be responsible and play our part, things will get a lot better after this. It’s really exciting to see how the world will adapt and innovate after this pandemic blows over!
Technopreneur Circle is a member-based community platform funded by Vertex Ventures for tech startups to connect, communicate, and collaborate. More information available at www.technopreneurcircle.com.
Contact us: techcircle@vertexholdings.com
As seen on: https://medium.com/@techcircle/how-techcircle-startups-stay-nimble-in-covid-9-times-outside-be0de83f9a32