After we learned about Sensbeat, the team of HKUST students that built a startup while juggling full-time studies (and still managed to graduate), we were floored by the talent and passion of Hong Kong’s young entrepreneurs. To date, Sensbeat has picked up US $500,000 – the largest first round of funding raised by a student-founded startup.
Another student startup that got on our radar was Umbrella Here – the happy-go-lucky team of interaction designers that decided to become entrepreneurs via a series of fortunate events. Made up of four PolyU students majoring in ‘Interaction Design,’ the Umbrella Here team created a Bluetooth light umbrella attachment controlled by a mobile app just as a side project – initially in response to the ‘Connect’ theme of the Interaction Awards. Just like a taxi ‘hired’ sign, the light indicates that the umbrella is available for sharing when switched on.
With no concrete plan, the four friends decided to enter Umbrella Here into a number of competitions in Hong Kong, Beijing and Shanghai. After winning a few (including the Hong Kong ICT ‘Interaction Design Gold Winner,’ the China University Business Challenge Winner), the team realized that they had a great product on their hands – but as they were all design-oriented, they struggled with the business side of things.
After being pressed many times to come up with a working business model, the students decided to put their project on Kickstarter – with only a video and a product description to pave their way.
“The four of us had never put anything on Kickstarter before – we just put it up there and told our friends to back our project,” said Patience Lee – co-founder of Umbrella Here (pictured above). “Within a few days, we got the Kickstarter Staff Pick so we were featured on the front page for a few days, then Yahoo and Unwire Hong Kong reached out to us.”
Midway through their campaign, crowdfunding guru Kevin Leung of Muku Labs offered to mentor the team of students. At this point, the Umbrella Here team hadn’t even reached out to any media outlets – but thanks to Leung’s advice, they got covered by Design Taxi, CNET and TechCrunch which pushed them past their US $15,000 goal just in time for campaign’s end.
Following a successful Kickstarter campaign, Umbrella Here continued along their road to success – and reaped the benefits of being a student startup in Hong Kong. After graduating from PolyU in June, their alma mater rallied around them – granting them HK $100,000 in seed funding via the ‘PolyU Micro Fund’. On top of that, Umbrella Here also scooped up an additional RMB $200,000 from the STEFG-PolyU China Entrepreneurship Fund, which requires teams to set up shop in either Shenzhen or Shanghai.
Come February 2015, the Umbrella Here team will be moving to Shanghai – due to funding requirements, but also because the Mainland has been much more receptive to their product. “A reason to be based in Shanghai is the Hong Kong market is kind of small. We’ve been to Beijing for exhibitions and Shanghai for a competition – and we found that the responses from China has been way better than Hong Kong, even from investors as they’re more willing to try something new,” said Lee.
Besides a more attractive funding landscape, she also cites a friendlier market as a reason to move to China. Through market testing, the Umbrella Here team has hit discouraging roadblocks in Hong Kong – especially with the older generation that has told them their product would never sell here. On the Mainland front, prospective users have been much more receptive.
While the government has been supportive to student-run startups via collaborative schemes with universities, perhaps the local market needs to work on being more open-minded to keep the young and talented building and innovating in Hong Kong?
