Café Too at Island Shangri-La is buzzing, at 8am. It reminds me that power breakfasts are still very much favoured among the rich and want-to-be-richer people.
I can hardly tie my shoelaces at that time of the morning let alone have an intense business discussion about money but Hong Kong does that to you – this is a place where the early bird does not get the worm, it gets the money too so you’d better not miss out.
The view from Island Shangri-La – city of big money
There’s an investors gathering in town and all the world’s big money men are here. At the table next to me are three men in suits – two Chinese and an Indian. I decide to switch on my Supergirl ears to suss out the situation.
“Sorry I was late,” says the Indian. “I was in the gym.”
“You run everyday?” asks one of the Chinese in an American-accented English.
“Yes, you have to at the rate I travel,” he says, as he attacks his full plate of food. It is the fundamental right of people who run everyday to eat as much as they think they deserve.
The two Chinese are clearly pitching to him.
“The value of money is underwriting the right risk,” he says, and then proceeds to pepper the two with questions. “You’ve got to worry when a company spends so much on sales and marketing.” “Why did the CEO leave?” “Profitability or growth – which is more important to you?”
I don’t know how it ended because my meeting turned up at that stage. I am catching up with an equity fund analyst, who manages billions of dollars worth of investments.
Curious, I ask him how he assesses risk. He tells me it’s obviously guided by numbers, business rationale, the team’s background – but also he says it’s about gut and intuition about people.
“It’s really a lot of common sense,” he says. “You got to use your head a lot and your heart as well.”
I told him I couldn’t do what he did – my heart would make me very poor – and he replies, “I want to do what you do. Travel.”
I get that a lot. People think what I do is glamorous, travel, write, run events.
“It’s only glamorous from the outside,” I say.
“Come on, it looks fun,” he persists.
“Okay, a little,” I confess sheepishly. I don’t want him to think I am a fun junkie but a serious money executive.
Lately, serious-money investors have been turning their sights on travel. Companies like Airbnb and Uber have proven that you can make really serious money on the promise of something. And Asia is a region of interest.
With technology bringing down walls and the shift to mobile devices – every traveller has at least one – aggregators like GrabTaxi, food delivery services like Deliveroo and restaurant reservations apps like Chope are touching travel.
The budget branded accommodation model – OYO Rooms, Nida Rooms – was born in Asia. Pokemon Go is a Japanese franchise. Tujia, a vacations rental business in China, is a unicorn expanding outside the mainland.
The disruption in hospitality technology opens up interesting possibilities, and brings giants like Oracle, Amazon, Alibaba and Salesforce into the picture. The move to the cloud and the convergence of data and technology means serious money is going to enter this space as giants make a grab for verticals.
Sometimes it doesn’t have to be the obvious investment. Look at what Moleskine has done for Syntegra Capital. People thought paper was going out of style but turns out people want both.
Said Arrigo Berni, CEO of Moleskine, “It was not an obvious investment. There were people who thought digital could be a threat and there are still people who believe that handwriting will be over at some point. People get a Moleskine notebook and an iPhone. The typical Moleskine customers are millennials and are typically highly educated and highly digitalized. They use both paper and digital products.”
Continuing our conversation about money and travel, my analyst friend makes this last observation, “I tell kids all the time, go travel before you start work. You learn more through travelling than sitting in a classroom.”
See, travel appeals to the head as well as heart.
Note: Seven startups have been selected to pitch at Asia’s largest travel startup event, WIT Bootcamp, on Oct 17. Three will go on to pitch at the Grand Finals at the WIT Conference on Oct 19. Don’t miss the opportunity to see these startups in action. Book your spot here.
