This week we have the CEO and founder of Tradegecko, Cameron Priest. Tradegecko recently announced an 8 million SGD, Series A round of funding . On this show we go into everything from why he started Tradegecko to how he gained traction from a few dozen customers to several thousand. Cameron and Tradegecko were one of the first graduates from the JFDI incubator in Singapore and have impressed with their global ambitions to become a market leader in SaaS.

Companies Mentioned In The Episode:

tradegecko.com
hoiio.com
xero.com
Shopify.com
Redmart
Rotimatic
Zopim
Travelmob
Viki

Show Notes:

story of trade gecko 1.47
Starting a services company with the intent to build assets through products. 3:20
treat job as reconnaissance mission for what you eventually want to do 3.34
how did you decide to make that step to go full time 4:34
The path to go full-time on tradegecko 4:53
Being at JFDI 5:58
Cold Calling: On the phone with customers in the states 6:28
Initial customer validation and feedback 7:30
The original business problem for Tradegecko to tackle 8:07
The choice to keep Tradegecko HQ in Singapore 11:00
We don’t want to be the biggest Asian SaaS company, we want to be the biggest SaaS company. 11:50
From first batch of customers to the first 1000 customers 13:15
Integrating with other platforms Xero and Shopify 13:37
Lessons learned at Tradegecko focus on the customer persona and pricing 14:20
The must have experience at Tradegecko 15:38
The one number Cameron thinks about every day, the velocity of monthly growth: 17:00
The Tradegecko team, scaling over 60 people 18:00
Ambitious and entrepreneurial people at the early stage 21:05
19 nationalities at Tradegecko, a global and diverse team 22:15
Being a “gecko” at Tradegecko #culture 22:20
The Tradegecko name 24:30
Other startups that Cameron admires @redmart @rotimatic 25:30
Focused on recruiting and hiring senior sales people 26:40
Lessons learned with raising venture capital 27:15
What the Singapore startup ecosystem needs to grow 28:15