Canadian geek in Myanmar

Another opinion piece I wrote for Frontier Magazine.

Myanmar is one of the most exciting tech stories in decades. This is the first time in history that a telecommunications infrastructure has been built data first. A couple of years ago the government said it wanted to achieve mobile penetration of about 80 percent in three years. Most people laughed and yet, less than two years after the foreign telcos launched their services, mobile penetration sits well above 50 percent.

There are two other countries that have been able to grow from below 15 percent to over 80 percent in three years: Vietnam and Russia. Given the speed of adoption in Myanmar, there’s no reason to think that it can’t also achieve this target.

Everyone knows that Myanmar’s mobile penetration has seen exponential growth but merely giving people a cheap SIM card does not actually connect them to anything. The other piece to “connecting” Myanmar is through the content. Without the right incentives to bring people online, the infrastructure is meaningless.

So what exactly is happening in the tech scene here?

The past few years have seen an explosion of localised apps and online services but with almost no exception, they are targeted at smartphone users, which is growing but still only a total addressable market of fewer than 10 million people. And let’s not forget their limited purchasing power. The Myanmar tech startups are also competing with industry giants, which have all localised their service offerings for the market. In some cases, those giants are spending enormous amounts of money to buy market share.

The chat wars are easy to spot: Beeline, WeChat and LINE, all billion dollar “unicorns” battling it out with each other while a few local players attempt to play with the big boys. Even Viber is losing ground now that it is not the only chat app that offers voice calling and allows for account authentication. It’s easy to be number one when everyone else is effectively blocked – something that happened in Vietnam a few years ago. Once the government stopped blocking Facebook, home-grown Zing took a major nose dive in market share.

Myanmar has no consumer-friendly banking, no common e-payments system, no credit ratings, not even reliable postal, utilities or logistics networks – digital or otherwise. Most of the people online do not know the difference between the internet and Facebook, and have been signed up to Facebook by the person who sold them their phone. They have never opened a browser, don’t have email addresses and have a friends’ list that is full of strangers.

On the plus side, we are also dealing with a consumer audience which is not yet inundated with huge amounts of content and with a thirst for trying new things and open to marketing messages.

So how do you build technology for a group of people who want it but are not really ready for it? In a market where access and knowledge are limited and people are hesitant to try things they don’t understand?

Winning this comes down to two simple things.

1: Remove the barriers to entry

In a country where the technical barriers to entry are high, ensuring that your customers can access your product is key. This can mean different things depending on your product and target market but in Myanmar, it usually comes down to a creative mix of online and offline initiatives.

At Jzoo we install tablets at our merchant locations and allow for our consumers to access through a printed card. This allows anyone to join, regardless of whether they have a smartphone or not. Additionally, our partners do not need to have any technical infrastructure or knowledge to integrate online marketing initiatives.

2: Own the first five minutes

This is a mantra of the gaming world but should really be for anyone who is building product. Since you only get one chance to make a good first impression, make sure that it counts here, too. Think of the last time you tried something new and how discouraging it was to not understand it or even worse, when it didn’t work. By ensuring that the first impression of the product is flawless, you will lower your abandon rate and likely raise your referral one.

Be creative about how to accomplish this, but make sure your customers understand what is going on and are enjoying themselves. Features such as a lazy login (so users can experience the product before forcing a sign in), and tutorials, go a long way in helping to own the first five minutes and keeping your customers engaged.

I recently started to write a few articles for a local business magazine, Frontier.  Below is an excerpt and link to the first article.  The next ones are about rolling out tech to Myanmar consumers and the third about building tech for girls. Hit me up with any other ideas you think might be interesting!

Catching and keeping your first million customers in Myanmar

Myanmar’s mobile penetration has seen exponential growth particularly in urban areas, with internet penetration and smart phone adoption following at a slightly slower rate. Nearly 70 percent of Myanmar’s population lives in rural areas where mobile penetration is significantly lower than the cities. While I don’t know what percentage of those devices are smart phones, I’m willing to bet it’s in the single digits.

The easy growth part of this story is over: those who have been waiting for years to get a SIM card now have one. The challenge now is to get to the harder to reach population and areas.

For those with smart phones, there’s a big question of content. The explosion of localised apps and online services has been targeted at urban users. It’s a growing market but a market of less than 10 million people with limited purchasing power.

Myanmar has about 30 million people who have mostly come online for the first time in the past 12 months. They have no digital footprint, no knowledge of how to find content and pay for content, no online communities where they gather. So how do you get to these people?

…Read more here

All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us. – J.R.R. Tolkien

It’s only been a few weeks so probably a little too early to call it but 2016 is shaping up to be the best year yet. A series of changes and shakeups, some planned and others forced have put me in an amazing place recently, both professionally and personally. It’s rare that we take the moments to slow down and recognize happiness but I have to say, right now, sitting on a rooftop watching the sun go down on the other side of Shwedagon, I’m happy. Really happy.

I’ve been mulling over this, trying to determine what’s different and how I can consciously, proactively keep living like this. I think it’s tied to a conversation I had with a friend about a week ago. I rather blithely announced that 2016 was the year of no assholes and more importantly, choosing the easy path. We laughed about the first but had a surprisingly deep conversation about the latter.

We both agreed that we needed to stop always taking the hardest, most challenging paths laid in front of us. It was time to stop proving that we could conquer and accept that we have. To start choosing ourselves over our reputations. To provide some context, this was a person who was also in their late 30’s and running a major conglomerate. I was shocked that I was getting not just support but active agreement from someone who is wildly successful and simply didn’t have an off switch that I could ever see.

As a society, we are so ingrained to believe that the easy path is the opposite of the rewarding one. That by choosing easy, we are choosing to forego rewarding. I’m hellbent to prove this wrong this year. Like I said earlier, it’s a little too early to call it but I suspect 2016 is going to be highly rewarding AND one of the easiest I’ve had in a long time. Who’s with me?

I write one of these every year and usually it comes really easily to me.  But I’ve been mulling over this particular wrap up for days and still am not entirely sure how to view 2015. Generally I can look at the past 12 months and give it a grade but 2015 was just all over the place.

One one hand, I launched a second company, met some incredible people and overall got my life back on track which was no easy feat given what 2014 looked like. I’m proud of my accomplishments and recognize that there’s been a lot of significant milestones. I’ve done things that that I didn’t think could do again and overcame a hell of a lot of insecurities and fears to get back on the entrepreneur train. All good things.

And yet, 2015 probably saw me do more things that I regret than at any other time in my life. I don’t normally live with regrets, what a useless emotion but as I sit and write this,  I also know that 2015 will leave more scars than I care to admit. But I also know that scars are character building and the lessons learned are important. The below is also an important reminder to find peace with 2015.

Those who know me, know how much I love the Christmas season. And there’s nothing as rejuvenating as going home and surrounding yourself with people who love you. This week has given me more clarity and balance than I’ve had all year. I can literally feel the stress melt away as I sip on eggnog lattes, eat gingerbread and catch up with people who have known me for decades.

Now is not the time for regrets. Now is a time for peace and joy. A time to reflect on all those who entered into my life, however briefly, to share a story, a laugh, a tear. To all my friends and readers, I hope you have a beautiful Christmas full of love and laughter and a 2016 that is successful and full of rich experiences.

I was talking to a friend about upcoming NYE plans and mentioned that I’ve not partied on the 31st for years now.  I know that the normal tradition is to ring in the new year with a big countdown and some champagne but January 1st has always been more important to me.

For the past 5 years I’ve been on a plane on the morning of the first which seems to set the right tone for the year ahead. Travel has always been a huge part of my life and starting it by going somewhere makes sense. Also, flying on the first is actually quite pleasant – the airports and planes tend to be quiet and the hassles of holiday travel are greatly reduced.

More importantly for me though,  I’ve always been on the plane alone which allows for me to reset for the year ahead. There’s something about the forced down time with no connectivity right after the craziness of the holidays that is deeply relaxing. While clean slates can be done at any time, there’s something about Jan 1st that is special, giving you some mental distance for the year behind and, good or bad, put it to bed. I’ve never been much for traditions but to my surprise, this has become one and something I don’t think will end anytime soon.

I was talking to a fellow blogger the other day about why we love to write. I’ve been a life-long scribbler and have books and books filled with random notes from when I was young. When the Internet arrived with blogs, I moved over because it was faster to type than to hand write (but I still keep a journal where I try to write about things I’m grateful for every few days).

I write because it’s therapeutic. I write because I need to get things off my mind and there’s no better way to clear out the noise than to find a way to write it down in a concise way.  There’s nothing like reading through your own ramblings to unravel the knots and get to the heart of the matter.  Then, every once in a long while, I get a note like the following:

I adore all of your posts because I think they are enlightening while always bringing it back to a human element, but this post has been the most impactful for me and I just want to thank you for putting that together.

If sharing my (sometimes deeply personal) thoughts can have even one meaningful impact on someone’s day then that’s even more reason to keep going at it. So thank you for the kind note, and I hope that you don’t mind that I’ve shared a part of it – I know you’re reading 🙂

Incidentally, this is someone who used to work for me early in my EA days. The following is probably one of the most rewarding emails I have ever received about work so thank you so much for taking the time to write such nice words!

PS: I’ve been a digital marketing manager, leading a team of 8, for almost 3 years now, and at least once a week I find myself asking “In this situation, what would Rita do?”. While it was just a few short months in 2007, you have definitely left an impression on me all these years later.

In June I will be turning 40 which often shocks people who don’t know me well – thank you mom and dad for the Asian genes!!! Some of my older friends tell me that it’s pretty much a non-issue while others tell me that they were fine with it until it actually happened.  So far, I don’t have any real angst about my age. Well, rarely anyway. I did have an ex who charmingly compared parts of my body to that of a celebrity who is 15 years my junior. I lost. I guess it’s not much of a wonder why he’s an ex, huh?

In any case, I was thinking about turning 40 today. More specifically, I was thinking of turning 40 with some of my close girlfriends in Italy this summer (woohoo!). Other than using a big round number as a reason to drag my friends on a great trip, I really can’t see drowning myself in a bottle of pink bubblies. Well, yeah okay maybe I will but it won’t be in misery but rather in celebration.

I remember a conversation I had with a mentor while in my early 20’s.  She was 43, beautiful, single and by all corporate standards, wildly successful.  One night we had some drinks and she made a comment that has stayed with me for almost two decades.  She said, “I’m not sure how I got to this – in my 40’s still single and with no kids.” It was a sad and deeply personal insight into regrets of her life choices. It also scared the hell out of me.

As I face my 40’s also single and childless, I’m luckily not feeling this kind of regret. I think it comes down to being comfortable with my life. Could I have made better choices? Absolutely. I have the therapist bills to prove it too. But I’ve lived as large and bold as I know how, which isn’t always easy but definitely not dull. I remember moving back to Vancouver right before I turned 30 and thinking I needed to put down roots.  Today, I do not have that feeling. Today, I look forward to another 40 years of travels and meeting interesting people.  To learning new things and collecting more memories. To being a great auntie, sister, daughter and friend.  Those are labels I’m happy with and that’s all that really counts at the end of the day, isn’t it?

Besides, I look damn good for a middle aged lady.

I have this collection of quotes that I save and store. They range from the funny and absurd to heartbreaking and courageous. This morning I decided that I needed a good laugh so decided to share some of the good ones. Happy Monday!