By Dennis D. Estopace / Conclusion
MEET Ralph Chua and Karl Len Dimla. They are under 30 and part of a generation that is greatly influenced by technology. And they have created something awesome: a start-up.
Called Saffron Technologies, this start-up is pioneering the use of Internet of things (IoT) in the Philippines. Their first product, Croo, is a wearable device that connects to a smartphone app. In the event of an emergency, the wearer can push the button on the device to alert a pre-designated contact that they may be in danger. Croo thus promises to keep millions of commuters in the country safe and secure from crime.
Saffron Technologies was independently founded by a group of engineers from Voyager Innovations, the digital arm of Smart Communications Inc. and Philippine Long Distance Telephone (PLDT) Co. They also all graduated from the University of the Philippines Diliman.
The BusinessMirror asked Chua and Dimla how they are, what led them to put up a successful information-technology start-up and their roles as CEO and chief technology officer, respectively, of Saffron the firm, not the spice.
Aside from downloading the Croo app, what are your recommendations so young people can meet the safety, fashion and protection motto that Saffron Tech stands for?
Karl Len Dimla (KLD): Saffron Technologies advocates a naturally connected world. By that, we mean that we want people to be connected to others and to their environment the easiest way possible.
We encourage the young people to explore and don’t be scared to use new technologies that could make people’s lives better. Also, despite new tech, it’s also good to work and innovate on what you currently have.
Whatever you work on, it’s best to think of its impact to the people and how it alleviates real life problems.
Please cite three things you can advice young people who may want to compete in venues like Ideaspace. Please cite the reasons why they need these or need to do so.
Ralph Chua (RC): Build, build, build; continue to improve and innovate until you hit your success. It is in failing that we learn what and how to improve for the better. On another note, last week we were just told not to call them fails, but to treat them as learning what “to do/not to do.”
Manage your risk, know how much risk you can take in. In building a business there are a lot of factors you must consider and learning how to manage the risk also helps you make better decisions for the business. Counter to managing risk is to take the plunge and have confidence in yourself. PLDT Chairman Manny V. Pangilinan said to us during pitch night of the Ideaspace Foundation Competition that if you are confident then there is no need to worry.
Finally, grab opportunities and hustle. Opportunities will come and go, like time, it will not wait for you, so grab as much as you can. Attend meetups, join competitions, talk to people and exchange information.
KLD: First and foremost, when you have an idea, implement it. I mean, almost anything in this world has been an “absurd” idea at first.
Thanks to those people who pursued and worked on their ideas, we now have wonderful applications and products. I really hate the moments in my life when I see a new product in the market that I have already thought of months or years ago. We all have our creative sides.
Crazy ideas pop into our head every now and then. But what do we do with these ideas? Write them down? Discuss them with your friends? These ideas are nonsense unless you turn them into actual products. You can’t give value to an idea until it becomes a reality.
Second is to know your market. Not all ideas are instant and perfect solutions to the problem that you are trying to solve. You really need to go out there, find your market and know them very well. The more you know your customers, the more fit your product will be for them. With that, when you release your product to the public, you may be uncertain that it will be bought by people, but at least you have strong insights that back up your decision.
Last is choose your teammates well and trust them. I think joining competitions like Ideaspace is like marriage. Understanding and trust are vital foundations of your relationship. If your teammates don’t share the same vision, you will have a hard time working on your idea. It is important to choose your team not solely based on their skills but also on their character and ability to fit in your team. Your personalities should really match.
You need to have a certain connection and understanding. In addition, you need to trust each other. There are a lot of tasks to accomplish and you cannot rely on a single person to do and oversee everything. That is why you need to develop trust on the person assigned on a specific task that he could and he would deliver well.
What’s it like working in a company like Voyager? What elements does it offer to spur innovation?
RC: Voyager, being an innovations company itself, helped instill in us a culture, a mind-set focused on building world-class solutions that solve real daily problems. Also being a business, it is here that we learned that our innovations are not just products but have to be businesses to be able to scale and sustain itself.
KLD: I can really say that Voyager Innovations has been a great help in my career since day one. It gave me a balance of freedom and responsibility. We are given specific tasks that we must accomplish at specific deadlines. However, we are not expected to be always in front of our laptops and code the whole day.
We have a ping-pong table, wave boards and musical instruments in our office. We can use them whenever we want. What is important is that you deliver what is expected from you with quality and at the right time.
Also, what I liked about Voyager is that they didn’t put us in a closed box. For example, I am an Android developer but that doesn’t mean that I should only focus on developing my knowledge on Android. I was free to explore things in other fields.
They provided us with resources, trainings and knowledge-sharing for other things like iOS, platform engineering and service engineering. Also, as engineers, we are entitled to the [Pareto principle] wherein 80 percent of our time goes to work while the other 20 percent can be used to work on something novel. To be honest, I never really planned on becoming a programmer or developer.
But being already given the chance to learn a lot of new things made me want to become a developer that could do just anything.
In Voyager they really supported us whenever we join contests and hackathons. That support alone really encourages us to participate and do our best. It is not very common that companies you work for support their employees in contests that don’t really give direct value to the company. With that support, it made us really eager to win and bring pride to the company.
Simply put, Voyager encourages us to innovate by providing us the support and freedom to do so and giving us the right tools and materials to execute.