BLOCK71 Singapore Entrepreneur Feature — ProSpace
In this week’s Entrepreneur Feature, we speak to Steve Ong, the founder of ProSpace Analytics, a B2B prop-tech start-up providing workplace analytic solutions for larger businesses.
1. Who are you and what do you do?
My name is Steve, I’m the founder of ProSpace Analytics together with my co-founder Qi Yue. Essentially, ProSpace is a B2B prop-tech start-up that provides workplace analytic solutions for large enterprises. In short, we provide them with analytic tools for them to manage their workplace plannings and help them deliver the savings and productivity increase in the workplace.
2. What is ProSpace’s secret sauce?
Our secret sauce lies in how we design our whole platform. Essentially our platform consists of both the hardware and the software. When we designed the platform, it is designed in such a way that when we do deployment for our client, it doesn’t require any renovations or cabling work in the office, unlike other competitors’ products we see in the market. Because of this, it’s very IKEA style, which is DIY. You can plug-and-play, the whole process is very simple. That’s the number one factor that we have.
The second factor is the synergistic product that we have. We also have a lot of productivity tools that come out of our IoT devices. For example, we have a conference room booking system and room finders that will improve the productivity of the users within the space itself.
3. What’s next for ProSpace?
For ProSpace, what we want to achieve in the next 12 months is an expansion out of Singapore. For the past 1 year, we have achieved tremendous successes. We have large corporations signed up with us, for example, P&G, Unilever, or some of the Singapore-linked companies. We’ve expanded to China and Japan as well. What we really want is to hire more talent, find more partnerships especially in the area of China and Japan, and from there hopefully grow exponentially.
4. What are some of your greatest challenges?
I think there’s two. The first is finding talent. We are in a very niche market within the corporate real estate. People outside of the industry may not understand what this is, which means that the talent pool is lower. The second is the marketing and branding. We are in a B2B business where the general thoughts within the industry are that they would not want to work with start-ups. They would prefer a company or vendor with more track record. When we first started, we encountered a lot of difficulties in proving to them that even though we were a start-up, we are able to produce just as capable if not much more quality solution as those in the market. The last one year has been good for us, but the challenge ahead is how can we scale it up into a more regional and global presence, and that’s the second biggest challenge we will face.
5. What are some of your best memories at NUS Enterprise?
I think that would be when I first decided to join a start-up. Prior to that, I used to work in Procter & Gamble, I had a comfortable role there. Making the jump wasn’t easy for me, I was a bit lost like “How should I start about this?” NUS Enterprise was the one who guided me through the initial processes. I went through their lean start-up processes, and they gave me some thought processes on how to get the initial step into the start-up world. The rest is history. I went with NUS Enterprise and together we pitched for the iJam. Now here we are, trying to expand globally. Thank you NUS Enterprise for the NOC and helping me in my start-up journey.
6. How can we help?
If any organisations would like to understand what exactly is a smart office and how these solutions are able to transform their offices into a more productive environment, they can reach out to us at our website https://www.prospace.io, or send an email to us at hello@prospace.io.
Watch the full video interview with Steve Ong from ProSpace here:
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If you are inspired by this story and have a start-up idea of your own, you can also apply to join the BLOCK71 ecosystem at http://bit.ly/BLOCK71SGApply !
