When launching your startup, you have customer acquisition, product development and fundraising on the brain and so branding often falls by the wayside. But as your startup begins to mature and you and your founders plot expansion plans, you start to realize the importance of marketing.
Just like enterprise tech startup Divide rebranded from Enterproid to serve a customer base outside of the Android realm, neighborhood social network MyFlat.HK also realized the need for a name change. While gleaning feedback during their initial growth stages, MyFlat.HK’s users were asking for wider coverage – and so they decided to change their name to ‘Around’ to reflect this broader need.
“After many user requests during our beta phase, we have decided to expand our scope and not only connect you with your real neighbors and the community you live in, but also connect you with the people and community in which you work and study. This way, we can serve the user almost 24/7, wherever they are,” said co-founder Matthew Tam.
Besides changing their name to encompass a larger spectrum of services, Tam said rebranding would help define their services a little more. “Some people thought that we were a real estate website when they heard our name for the first time, so we wanted to eliminate that confusion as well,” he said. “We want to be very clear in communicating what our platform does.”
As a location-based platform that connects communities on a real-time basis, Around was spawned from the realization that Hongkongers do not know their neighbors — despite the city being one of the most densely populated places in the world. After being one of six lucky startups to complete the full Google EYE program and visit Mountain View this year, Around is looking to take their platform outside of Hong Kong.
“Around is a preparation of going global and to conquer other metropolises. First of all, “flat” is not a word that is used by Americans and we wanted to get rid of the .HK domain,” said Tam. “And we want to be able to leverage on our brand for marketing purposes once we decide to expand to other cities.” Around is currently looking to bring on investors for a bigger seed round to fund their expansion plans, and has also brought on three new founding partners with domain expertise to fuel growth.
Alex Cheng, who was the startup’s mentor at the EYE program, is now heading up consumer digital marketing and business development. Cheng, a serial entrepreneur, has co-founded Business Creation and FoodEasy and is also a local partner at EZTable. Mingo Kwan, who was previously the head of property management at MTR Corporation, will be handling business development and property management within the shopping mall and retail sector. Jeffrey Au, a partner at Incu-Lab and a pioneer in Hong Kong’s Internet startup scene, has also come on board to lend a hand with community development.
If all goes according to plan, said Tam, Around will be rolling out their native mobile apps for both Android and iOS over the Christmas holidays. Check out their rebranded website here.
Around on Startbase.HK: Around
Matthew Tam on Startbase.HK: Matthew Tam
