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