EnterpriseZone.cc Connecting Global Leaders
The inconvenience of key sharing led to the innovation of wireless remote locking and unlocking devices, then Anthony Chow extended the range to fit in with the coming of smart living and smart cities.
What’s your story?
As Airbnb hosts, we faced the frustrations of the inconvenience of physical key exchanges, especially when guests wanted to check in at odd hours. As such, the team wanted to enhance the experience of both hosts and guests and therefore set out to eliminate such problems.
We then created award-winning keyless access solutions for smarter living and smarter cities. With our smart locks, users can grant time-sensitive access to their properties or assets remotely. Unlike other devices in the market, igloohome uses unique technology – algoPIN™- that enables the locks to operate remotely without the need for WiFi connectivity.
What excites you most about your industry?
The global smart home market is expected to grow from US78.3 billion in 2020 to US135.3 billion in 2025. With the rise of the smart home, smart cities are increasingly important too. Smart cities are expected to grow from US410.8 billion in 2020 to US820.7 billion by 2025. Whether it’s about shared spaces for commercial entities or property rentals, there are plenty of ways that smart access supports smart cities. On a small scale, it’s useful for reducing costs and streamlining processes. On a bigger scale, the impact is more evident.
What drives you in business to push beyond what other people consider normal?
Knowing that what we do has a positive impact on our customers is a great push for me to keep going. Every time customers leave us feedback on how our solutions have helped them in one way or another, or when they share ideas on how we can improve so that it helps us to help them, that drives me to go the extra mile.
What have been the most useful skills you have learnt and applied in your journey?
Especially through this pandemic, I learnt that it is very important to be grateful. With everyone working remotely, it is important to recognize that everyone has things to deal with that you are most probably unaware of and that a small thank you sometimes goes a long way.
What’s the best piece of advice you ever received?
Paul Graham, one of the earliest investors in Airbnb, famously told them to “do things that don’t scale”. This is very important advice, especially at the beginning. Because of this, we ensure to personally get to know every one of our early customers; we’ve spent time with them, fitted the locks properly for them and aimed to get the product right before we decided to scale. It’s about going slow to go fast.
Who inspires you?
Lee Kuan Yew, the ex-Minister Mentor and founding father of Singapore. Singapore is all about developing talent, which is something igloocompany aspires to do as well. Much like the small country starting out against the world, igloocompany is similar when compared to other established lock players in the market. The David v. Goliath similarity is very inspiring, having seen MM Lee overcome each hurdle to get Singapore to where it is today, igloocompany aims to follow the same route.
What have you learnt recently that blew you away?
Tesla is worth more than 9 of the largest automakers combined
If you had your time again, what would you do differently?
We’d focus on solving one problem first before growing into a company that offered a full ecosystem of access solutions.
In the beginning, we were all over the place, across 4 different countries with just 10 people on board. Things became inefficient, and we were stretched, even before we figured out what was the right product for our customers. We quickly scaled-down and focused on the early few customers in one area, and began to regain traction.
We grew each country carefully by handpicking each of our 100 distributors and working out a Go-to-market strategy with their localization efforts.
How do you unwind?
On the side, I’m a technology tinkerer, book-reader, and love spending time with loved ones.
What is a major mindset change, belief shift or ‘ah ha’ moment that you’ve experienced in relation to your business?
Founders tend to get impatient, and it is wise to rein that in. It is important that founders know everything about the customers that they are solving the problem for, and this means spending time with each customer individually. This will enable you to get to the product to market fit before you start thinking about scaling. A customer first mindset has also proved to be valuable, it guides us in everything we do to ensure the best product, service standards and the like are being presented to the end user.
Everyone in business should read this book:
I love reading autobiographies, so I’d recommend Lee Kuan Yew’s one.
Shameless plug for your business:
igloohome creates award-winning keyless access solutions for smarter living and smarter cities. With igloohome, users can grant time-sensitive access to their properties or assets remotely. Unlike other smart locks in the market, igloohome uses unique technology – algoPIN™- that enables the solutions to be highly secure and to operate remotely without the need for WiFi connectivity.
iglooworks is an enterprise-focused line offering a suite of smart access solutions for remote monitoring and management of access for infrastructure providers, facilities managers, smart city developers, and more. Combining hardware and enterprise grade software, iglooworks streamlines the access management process for industries worldwide.
How can people connect with you?
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/anthonychowwj/
Email: anthony@igloocompany.co
Social Media Links?
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/igloohomeco
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/igloocompany/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/igloohomeco/
Website: www.igloohome.co
